Meat your maker

Earlier this year, results of a huge long-term study on meat consumption, heart disease and cancer were published showing that red and processed meats kill us early. It involved 448,568 men and women who were healthy at the beginning of the study and who were followed for an average of 13 years. The aim was to see if there really was any association between red meat, processed meat and poultry consumption and a risk of early death. The study showed that high consumption of red meat (two portions a day) increases the risk of premature death and the association was even stronger for processed meat. There was also a strong link between processed meat intake and cardiovascular diseases and cancer in general. This confirms what we’ve known for years – It’s time to change our diet.

_{Rohrmann, S., Overvad, K., Bueno-de-Mesquita, H.B., et al., 2013. Meat consumption and mortality–results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. BMC Medicine. 11: 63.}