Journalist's 12 years spent researching dietary recommendations shows that beef and other red meat have been given "a bad rap."

By ROD SMITH

THE best diet is one that avoids "bad calories" and embraces "good calories," which is a diet that includes beef and other red meat, according to scientific journalist Gary Taubes.

Beef and red meat are often tied to cancer, cholesterol, heart disease, obesity and many other diet-induced issues, he said, but that's "a bad rap."

Generally, beef and red meat are an "integral" part of a healthful and nutritious diet, he said.

Taubes, speaking to Feeding Quality forums in North Platte, Neb., and Amarillo, Texas, said he spent 12 years seeking to determine "what's real and what's not" about diet and health, findings that are documented in his book Good Calories, Bad Calories.

Taubes said he saw how many diet/health researchers choose information that supports their theories and ignore the information that doesn't, which is a kind of "wishful thinking, or bad science."

He said he also learned what can really be supported by science.

Taubes now tours the country lecturing on what he learned from his research, but he said medical researchers tend to dismiss him as a journalist and not an authority on diet and health.

His book outlines studies concerning diet and heart disease and the evolution of current dietary recommendations, which he said made cutting out beef and red meat a target for heart-health recommendations.

Experts started out their thinking with a hypothesis that fat increases blood cholesterol, which then increases the risk of heart disease, and they "locked themselves into (this) perspective in the 1970s," Taubes said.

In reality, he said, decreasing or eliminating meat in the diet and increasing the amount of carbohydrates will raise the level of dietary triglycerides and reduce the level of high-density lipoproteins -- the "good cholesterol" -- in the body.

The consequence of this occurrence is that it may increase one's risk of heart disease, he said.

However, Taubes noted that as this effect started to show, it meant that the advice dietitians, medical researchers and other specialists had been giving people was wrong, and they would need to say that they had made a mistake in recommending low-fat, low-meat diets 30 years ago.

This has been difficult for them to acknowledge, he said.

As people "ditch" proteins and increase carbohydrate consumption, their bodies distribute more glucose into their bloodstreams, Taubes said.

Glucose is a sugar, he explained, and the body responds to sugar by hyper-secreting hormonal insulin, to which muscles become resistant.

The insulin also signals the liver to convert carbohydrates into triglyceride fat, and the body starts to store the fat in fat cells, he said.

"Everything goes wrong as one elevates insulin," Taubes said, noting that fat is one nutrient that doesn't stimulate the body to produce insulin.

The Inuit Eskimos, often pointed to as one of the healthiest populations, ate diets 100 years ago that were essentially 25% meat and 75% fat, he reported.

Taubes concluded that "what makes you fat makes you sick" and increases the risk of cancers, diabetes, heart disease and other ailments.

The trick, he suggested, is knowing which kinds of foods make people fat.

The Feeding Quality forums at which Taubes spoke were sponsored by Certified Angus Beef LLC, Land O'Lakes Purina Mills, Pfizer Animal Health and Feedlot magazine.

Taubes' complete presentation is available in PowerPoint format at www.cabpartners.com/events/past_events/index.php.

Here's the point

ONCE again, the concept of a balanced diet in which beverages and foods are ingested in moderation has been shown to be beneficial to an individual's health and well-being.

Although journalist Gary Taubes does address bad calories and good calories in his analysis of diet and health and a book discussing his findings, the point is that going overboard to avoid some foods -- such as beef and other red meat -- and to instead focus one's diet on other foods -- such as carbohydrates -- is not recommended. A balance of carbohydrates and proteins, consumed in moderation, is more the ideal.

Furthermore, it's not what but how much one consumes and the extent to which individuals engage in active an lifestyle and exercise -- calories in and calories out -- that make a balanced diet work to control weight and keep people well.

Finally, milk, an animal-based protein source, has an essential role in helping people lead that active lifestyle and get more out of their exercise regimens. Milk not only "does a body good" by providing calcium for bone strength but also provides vitamin D for athletic prowess, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

So, creating a balanced meal that includes milk -- as in the American Dairy Assn. & Dairy Council's "Milk with Meals" promotion with the New York State Dietetic Assn. -- is a means to live well.

Balance, moderation, exercise: These are important messages that trump an agenda aimed at "don't have" rather than "have right." Additional information is available at www.FeedstuffsFoodLink.com.