Meaty Research

The Hindu : Health / Policy & Issues : Eating less meat could save 45,000 lives a year: "Cutting meat consumption to 210g a week would hugely reduce deaths from heart disease and cancer, research in a report for Friends of the Earth shows More than 45,000 lives a year could be saved if everyone began eating meat no more than two or three times a week, health experts and Friends of the Earth claim.

Widespread switching to low-meat diets would stop 31,000 people dying early from heart disease, 9,000 from cancer and 5,000 from strokes, according to new analysis of British eating habits by public health expert Dr Mike Rayner contained in an FoE report.

Dramatically reduced meat consumption would also save the NHS GBP1.2bn and help reduce climate change and deforestation in South America, where rainforests are being chopped down to grow animal feed and graze cows which are exported to Europe, the report states.

Eating too much meat, particularly processed meat, is bad for health because doing so can involve consuming more fat, saturated fat or salt than official guidelines recommend, the FoE say...."