Red Meat Shows the Flaws in Nutritional Research

Red meat has been the subject of countless controversial studies, with popular medical advisories opposed to its consumption — but is the case as cut and dried as it seems?

A recent series of articles published in the Annals of Internal Medicine has reignited a long-running debate about the healthfulness of red meat and its place in a modern, Western diet. The authors have been met with significant backlash thus far, as their pro-meat conclusions are in direct tension with the current nutritional zeitgeist. The authors state:

The field of nutritional epidemiology is plagued by observational studies that have conducted inappropriate analyses, accompanied by likely erroneous conclusions.

While the stance is certainly controversial, it highlights important flaws in the red meat research that currently informs popular opinion. In this piece, I will take a lens to this research, elucidating why the red meat phobia is…