Tag Archives: Meat

Low-fat vs Low-carbohydrate Which is better for Weight loss?

Posted on November 12, 2018 by | 1 comment

Do you track your calories if you are trying to lose weight? Do you look at the amount of fat that is present in food? Protein and carbohydrates? For most people the answer to most of these questions is “sometimes”. When you might ask why they don’t pay closer attention to some of these attributes of food, they may mention that a single factor is more important than others. What is the main factor in weight loss when it comes to the composition of food?

Public Domain Author: Peggy Greb, U.S. Department of Agriculture

There are many advocates for the plant-based low-fat high-carbohydrate way of eating. This approach generally will contain around ~65% energy from carbohydrates, ~15% energy from protein and ~20% energy from fats. This diet calls for a large number of whole foods such as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. The benefits are generally to have improved cardiovascular markers such as lowered cholesterol levels, lowered triglycerides, reduced C-reactive protein levels (inflammation biomarker) and have higher energy levels. A study took a look at a standard non-calorically restricted low-fat plant-based diet that was followed for 16 weeks. They found that with increasing percentage of energy from carbohydrates and increased consumption of total and insoluble fiber was associated with a lower weight. It also had favorable effects on insulin control which means it can be effective in reversing pre-diabetes.

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Author: Øyvind Holmstad

Another popular diet regimen for weight loss is a low-carbohydrate diet, popular variants include the Ketogenic diet (~5% energy from carbohydrates, ~20% energy from protein, and ~75% calories from fat) or the Atkins diet (a higher protein and lower fat variant of the Ketogenic diet). These diets aim at carbohydrate restriction to induce a state of mainly burning fat for your body’s energy needs. This is a state of ketosis and this can reduce appetite which can make dieting easier. This diet also claims to improve the same cardiovascular markers as previously mentioned in the low-fat diet description. A study shows that when pinned side by side, low carbohydrate diets can lead to more favorable changes in lipid profiles, as well as being greater in effectiveness for weight loss even while calories weren’t restricted when compared side-by-side with a calorically restricted low-fat diet.

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Author: M21Cestda

The idea of a diet is frightening to many because the restriction is not easy especially from food. A diet should aim to increase your cardiovascular biomarkers to minimize risk for disease and increase your chances of leading a long healthy life. In dietary studies, many studies contradict results of another, A study which reviewed all the other smaller scale studies on the different macronutrient composition diets found that there was no significant difference between weight loss in different diets assuming that calories were controlled. This means that the diet that would be the ideal candidate for inducing weight loss would be a calorie restricted plan which can be followed the best.

1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , ,

Could Eating Protein Be Bad?

Posted on November 5, 2018 by | 3 comments

What would it take for you to give up eating meat?

A recent study published last Monday reported that limiting nitrogen levels in our large intestines could control the amount of bacteria growing in there.  From 30 animal feces samples that Dr. Reese and her team of scientists at Harvard University measured, they found that meat-eaters’ feces contained more nitrogen than those of omnivores or herbivores.  That’s because protein contains nitrogen.  Lots of it.

This means that when you eat protein, you’re  literally feeding the bacteria in your intestines with nitrogen.  Believe it or not, over 1000 different species of bacteria live in our largest intestines alone.  Luckily, most microbes – short for microorganisms – in our bodies help in processing food waste and regulating immunity.  In fact, intestinal bacteria that typically live in our large intestines play a vital role in metabolic activities, such as fermentation.  Fermentation essentially describes the breakdown of carbohydrates into smaller molecules known as fatty acids.

Electron Micrograph of E. coli. Image from Flickr.

So in these cases, it would actually be beneficial to make sure that these good bacteria thrive.  Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to break down the fibres found in oats, barley, and quinoa.  To promote bacterial growth, we should eat more meat and eggs, or beans and tofu if you are a vegetarian, to increase our intake of protein.

But occasionally we house harmful parasite like salmonella which cause intestinal infections.  Salmonella is an invasive bacteria that’s usually associated with consuming contaminated or raw eggs and chicken.  As a result, you would often get diarrhea and stomach cramps.

Then eating meat would have a negative impact on your body.  Since protein contains high levels of nitrogen, bacteria would feed off the same nutrients that your body requires.  Not only do parasites compete with the good bacteria residing in our intestines for growth, but by allowing parasites to thrive and manifest itself, we become more ill.  Under these circumstances, you probably want to stay away from eating all foods high in protein to be safe.

For someone who loves to eat sushi and Korean barbeque, it would devastate me too much to stop eating fish or meat.  Besides, there are probably more friendly bacteria than parasitic bacteria otherwise we would constantly feel ill.  Next time, I’ll make sure to properly cook all meats and minimize cross contamination as much as possible so that I don’t contract any harmful bacteria.

A steak dinner. Image from Flickr.

So would you eat less protein after Dr. Reese’s study suggests that this would help limit bacteria’s growth in our large intestines?

– Jacqueline Zheng

3 Comments

Tagged , , , , , ,

Vegetarians Versus Meat-Eaters

Posted on October 31, 2018 by | 4 comments

Fun fact about myself: I used to be vegetarian, specifically lactoovovegetarian. Meaning, I still ate dairy products and eggs. I’m not a vegetarian anymore, but I try to avoid eating meat. One thing my mother would always say to me while I was vegetarian was that I would get a disease because, in her eyes, I wasn’t getting enough protein.

There are other vegetarian sources of protein such as chickpeas. I just ate more of these protein sources than usual. If I stayed vegetarian, would I get a disease?

A study published by Dr. Francesca Crowe, Dr. Paul Appleby, Dr. Ruth Travis, and Dr. Timothy Key in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2013 examined the association of a vegetarian diet with the risk of dying of cardiovascular disease such as ischemic heart disease.

Ischemic heart disease is a disease of reduced blood supply to the heart. Blockages or narrowing of the arteries can cause it.

Clogged Heart Artery
By: Scientific Animations –
CC BY-SA 4.0

The lipid profiles and blood pressures of 44,561 men and women from England and Scotland were analyzed and matched to ischemic heart disease cases. The researches found that vegetarians had a lower mean BMI (Body Mass Index), non-HDL cholesterol concentration (bad cholesterol), and systolic blood pressure (pressure in your blood vessels when your heart beats) than non-vegetarians.

One might think that since vegetarians had a lower BMI, this may have been a contributing factor to the risk of ischemic heart disease. However, after adjusting for BMI, the researchers found that vegetarians had a 32% lower risk of ischemic heart disease than non-vegetarians. This result also did not differ by sex, age, BMI, or other health risk factors.

You might be debating with yourself on whether you should start eating grass for lunch. Yes, vegetarians are at a lower risk of ischemic heart disease, most likely because of lower non-HDL cholesterol and systolic blood pressure levels. But what about other diseases, such as cancer? Chicken is my favourite type of meat and I would hate to have to stop eating it.

Another study published in 1999 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition by Dr. Timothy Key et al. showed that there was no significant difference between vegetarians and non-vegetarians when it came to the mortality from numerous cancers. The only difference between vegetarians and non-vegetarians was the risk for cardiovascular disease. The study also found that this risk was 34% lower in people who ate fish but not meat and in lactoovovegetarians. Thus, a person can still eat a type of meat and have a lower risk of heart disease.

Vegetarian Diet
From: pxhere

So what does all this mean? It means that living a vegetarian diet will lower your risk of cardiovascular diseases, such as ischemic heart disease. However, it is not necessary to go full blown vegetarian to avoid disease such as cancer.

I’m going to stick with what I’m doing and eat meat seldom.

Gale Ladua

4 Comments

Tagged , , , , , ,

Meat-ing a Rising Global Demand for Food

Posted on October 22, 2018 by | 3 comments

If the 20 largest meat and dairy companies in the world were a single country, they would have overtaken Germany to become Europe’s largest polluter in 2016 (GRAIN & IATP, 2018).

This statement probably makes you sad. But you’ll also get over it in the next few minutes because meat is tasty, and nothing else can fill its void in your life. Despite the damaging impacts of industrial livestock farming on the environment, the demand for farmed meat is unlikely to change without any effective meat substitutes.

But this reality is being challenged by a San Francisco-based start-up, JUST For All, developing lab-grown meat products. The movement is inspired by solving two of the meat industry’s biggest problems: the unethical treatment of animals and the poor efficiency of meat production.

The world’s first lab-cultured hamburger unveiled in 2013. Image Source: World Economic Forum – The Meat Revolution by Mark Post

The idea involves harvesting muscle tissue from an animal, followed by isolating special satellite cells from the sample. These cells can become skeletal muscle cells and so are allowed to multiply under controlled lab conditions. The cells eventually clump up into muscle fibers which can be processed into meat:

An overview of the process of producing meat in the lab – Figure by Brad Wierbowski (Image Source) (accessed 22nd October, 2018)

Raising animals for food requires many resources such as water, feed, and energy for animal upkeep. But you might think the same is true for many other industries in today’s age. The claim is justified, but the main problem concerns the resource efficiency of meat production i.e., how much meat we produce relative to the number of resources we invest.

The graph below is an example of the resource efficiency of animal feed in producing meat and dairy products. The efficiency is expressed as the percentage of energy in animal feed actually incorporated into an animal product. The energy conversion efficiency of most meat products is below 15%, with beef ranking last at 1.9%. This means that about 98% of the energy in the feed a cow eats is wasted. 

Graph illustrating percentage of energy in animal feed incorporated into final animal product. Figure by Sahil Kanani. Data Source: (Alexander et al., 2016)

I was personally skeptical about the notion of growing meat in a petri dish, but the benefits are significant. Most of the energy consumed by an animal is either wasted as heat or used in other metabolic processes asides from muscle production. Cell cultures eliminate most of these side processes, making more energy available for muscle fiber growth.

Furthermore, only a single sample of tissue needs to be harvested to make a large amount of meat: about 80,000 quarter-pounders according to start-up company Mosa Meat. Lab-grown meat effectively removes the need to raise animals from birth to harvest, reducing how much water and energy we use for meat production. 

But the road to cleaner meat is also not so straightforward. The lab-grown meat industry still needs to convince people that their products are safe to consume. Several start-ups have recently faced resistance from the US Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) who filed a petition on how lab-grown meat should be marketed. The lobby group has demanded that the term ‘meat’ only include products derived from raising or slaughtering animals. From my analysis, the petition aims to deter consumers from purchasing lab-grown meat due to the negative preconceptions associated with ‘artificially’ produced foods.

Overall, for clean meat to be well-assimilated, the industry must do a good job of educating the public about the safety of their products and highlighting the need for a more environmental-friendly meat substitute.

Is it also far too late in this blog to declare i’m vegetarian?

3 Comments

Posted in News

Tagged , , , , ,