I wouldn't worry too much.

10 years ago butter was bad for you and vegetable oils were good. Now the only oils that are good for you are butter and cold-processed extra virgin olive oil and you're supposed to be at an increased risk for cancer if you use Canola oil. 15 years ago eggs were bad for you - now they are only bad if you have a rare hereditary tendency towards a certain type of heart disease. I could go on and on. I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter what I eat - if it's unhealthy now, it will have become healthy in 10 or 20 years.

Because the study apparently didn't distinguish between factory farmed meat and healthily raised meat, I think its conclusions are worthless. It's like studies on eggs that don't distinguish between factory raised and free range--two entirely different products with much different levels of good/bad cholesterol, Omega 3/omega 6 fatty acids, etc.

You might want to check out www.eatwild.com and the Weston A. Price foundation. The latter goes way overboard and gets a little hysterical sometimes (and unfortunately, many of the articles in their publications are badly written), but their basic ideas are valuable.

Every day some group or other comes up with a new danger, something else that is going to kill us. But of course, our longevity keeps increasing.

One of the reasons I take all these studies with a grain of salt is that they don't take into account the fact that something has to kill each of us sooner or later.

I wonder how many of the people in this study got cancer after eating red meat every day of their 96 years?? How many ate red meat every day, and also smoked 2 packs a day? How many ate red meat every day and thought potatoes were the only "vegetable" they needed?

Bah!

We should enjoy the life we have and simply be moderate in all things. Eat a varied diet, enjoy a variety of physical activities, and relax...stress probably causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, and bunions.

if it's unhealthy now, it will have become healthy in 10 or 20 years

That reminds me of the Woody Allen Movie, Sleeper. He wakes up in the future and everything that "they" said was bad for you, turned out to be good for you. Everyone was smoking cigarettes which turned out to be good for you after all. Of course that's the extreme, but it IS funny how "they" go back and forth on what's good for you/bad for you every few years.

It's been long established that we shouldn't eat that much red meat and processed meat. From what I can see, this is just apparently a more thorough study supporting the same facts.

Yes everyone dies of something. Both meat-eater and not, mind you. Yes, people who died of unrelated causes certainly made it into the group, and we don't know how that was accounted for. That's why it's good to study large populations, to even these things out. Over 500,000 people - seems like a good sized group to me.

I, like others here, don't freak out with every new report. But when a huge study like this supports ideas that have been already well-established for quite some time, it's probably something worth taking note of. Just my opinion.

My motto is eat anything you want IN MODERATION....
I've decided or have heard that everything is bad for you and everything is good. SOOOOO go for it!!!!!

Linda

My grandfather ate hamburger meat for dinner every day of his life for as long as I can remember--he lived to be over 100 years old. I'll take my chances.

dk, good genes! LOL

Nope, not worrying either. Anything in excess is bad for us and we've learned to eat huge portions. Remember a serving is 3 ounces and who the heck eats a big juicy 3 ounce steak?

Even the people doing the study says the increased risk is "minimal". The increased risk for heart disease is why I started raising grass fed beef, it's nearly as lean as venison and extremely low in saturated fat. My home grown eggs have less saturated fat and more of the Omega 3s that are found in salmon.

As rachelellen pointed out, what are the other risk factors. My father, the beef farmer died at 76 after years of heart problems. He ate beef every day of his life, at least once a day. He also ate potatoes probably twice a day, often fried in bacon grease. Bread was always always white and invariably spread very generously with butter. He smoked 2 packs a day until he was in his 40s and spent at least 40 years of his life drinking hard on weekends. He was overweight, got very little exercise and developed diabetes. He ate pancakes every day, I swear, for the last two years of his life and always wanted dessert in spite of the diabetes. He loved white pasta and ate inordinate amounts of cheese.

So, did he die at a relatively young age? Yes. Did he eat beef nearly every day? Oh yeah. Did the beef kill him. Um.....I doubt it.

I'm also remembering that several years ago, when I was diagnosed with "familial hyperlipidemia" (that's really high cholesterol, LOL) I was told to avoid shrimp because of the cholesterol level. Now I'm told it's healthy, it's low fat, eat a bunch.

Moderation in everything, I think, is the key. Eat beef or pork a couple of times a week, add fish, chicken, seafood. Remember beans, lentils, eggs, peanut butter, all non-meat options. Meat should be 1/4 of your plate, at the most, the rest healthy vegetables.

And even if you're eating lean grass fed beef, when you grill a well-marbled 8 ounce rib eye, top it with a blue cheese sauce, add a salad loaded with croutons, bacon bits, hard boiled egg, cheese and a full fat dressing, have butter and sour cream on your baked potato and then ask what's for dessert, well, all bets are off.

Annie

Yup, moderation is the key. What the study seemed to say is that a quarter pounder a day is not to be considered moderation. Again, nothing new here, just a bit more of a study to support old ideas.

I remember Julia Child's take on the "butter is bad for you" fad. She said butter was good, you just didn't eat a pound at a time! Moderation was preached by this wonderful lady, and practiced also. She lived to a ripe old age, cooking and enjoying good food. May we all be so blessed!