Meat has always been one of the staple foods of mankind. But while our ancestors still had to fight hard for meat on the hunt, shoot the animals themselves, gut them and prepare them, today a reach into the refrigerated counter is enough. Meat has never been as cheap and available in such large quantities as it is today. According to the World Agricultural Report, global meat consumption has more than tripled in the last 40 years. In 2012, for example, 300 million tons of meat ended up in cooking pots. The industrialized countries account for a large proportion of this: on average, every German eats just under 60 kilograms of meat a year, and U.S. Americans even eat around 120 kilograms. According to experts, this is too much.
Is meat healthy?
Meat in itself is an important food. It provides a lot of valuable protein, vitamins and large amounts of iron. But depending on the type of meat and the way it is prepared, there is also far too much fat, table salt, preservatives and sometimes even antibiotics in meat. The consequence of too much meat consumption are often civilization diseases such as:
- A too high cholesterol level
- Obesity
- Gout
- Cardiovascular disease
- Osteoporosis
A connection with the increased incidence of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and cancer is also suspected. The consequence: many people give up meat altogether and become vegetarians or vegans, or at least buy only organic meat.
Organic meat as a healthy alternative
With the purchase of organic meat, you are in line with the trend, because more and more animal breeders and farmers’ associations are specifically opting for species-appropriate outdoor husbandry, balanced feed without meat-and-bone meal and a renunciation of hormone administration or antibiotics. Organic meat can therefore rightly be called healthy, because it has about twice as many healthy omega-3 fatty acids, a better quality and guarantees no residues of drugs and pesticides.
In addition, scientists suspect that the hormones that animals release when they are scared and stressed have a negative impact on the taste of the meat. So the happiness that free-range cows, pigs and sheep feel can literally be tasted.
Diet with meat
In principle, there is nothing wrong with the regular consumption of meat. However, it should not be on the menu more often than two or three times a week. It also depends on what type of meat is consumed and whether it ends up on the plate with or without the skin.
Beef, for example, has a relatively low fat content of 8.5 percent on average. In the case of pork, the tenderloin has only two percent fat, while the belly meat has over 16 percent. Poultry should always be eaten without the skin. For example, roasted chicken with skin has about 9.6 percent fat, and without skin only one percent.
Meat or sausage?
In general, steaks, cutlets and drumsticks are preferable to processed meat, which is sausage. A recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston shows that daily consumption of 50 grams of processed meat is enough to increase the risk of diabetes by 19 percent and the risk of heart disease by 42 percent.
According to the study, the reason is the enormously high concentration of cooking and nitrite salts in salami, Vienna sausages and the like. These are allegedly risk factors for high blood pressure and high blood sugar levels, which in turn promote numerous other diseases.
