Eating meat is part of tradition in virtually every culture. Any community gathering usually involves skewering some meat upon an open fire. However, we no longer live in the times where we hunt our food, use all parts of the animal and consume this natural flesh as part of a grateful ritual, in small groups and amounts. Today, we have industrial agriculture, and integrity no longer exists in any element of meat consumption.
Red meat has long been praised for having positive health effects, packed full of vitamins, minerals and protein. Yet, a large majority of today’s meat is processed, meaning that its few natural properties that could have a positive effect on the consumer’s health are vastly reduced. Processed red meats, likely the most detrimental of all food products, still do not, by relativity, make red meats any healthier for the consumer. Red meat has been linked to issues with cardiovascular health and Type II Diabetes. It hardens, clogs and thickens the blood in your body and arteries, making it difficult for your system to function. Over time, this increases likeliness of death, especially through complications caused by this ramification of eating red meat.
Furthermore, if the health issues from red meat are not enough to make you quit, think about the way in which red meats are processed. Whether or not you think your meat comes from a singular source, today it is difficult to know for a fact, not to mention ‘grass-fed’ schemes that remove the guilt from eating red meat to increase profits for the seller. What is actually in your burger, steak, salami and so on is becoming more and more of a grey area. More often than not, red meat products are composites of any number of cows. Thereby, the chance of getting E. Coli becomes way higher through the diverse bacterial configurations created through the fabrication and then consumption of these mystery red meats. If your meat is coming from thousands of cows, the source of the nutrition becomes extremely questionable, not to mention the process that it went through. But this is only one of multiple aspects of the issue that is the Meat Industry. There lies the emphasis - it is an industry that needs a vast amount of supply to meet its ever growing demand. This means that we are looking at factory farms raising more animals than ever before. With a large amount of life stock contained in one space you have the perfect breeding ground for an array illnesses the animal can develop. To counter that they pump them with antibiotics because one sick cow can me a massive threat to the bottom line. When we eat meat we consume the sum of the animals life. All the substances it has consumed during its life are marginally deposited in their bodies and we wind up consuming them. Then we wonder why our digestive system is consistently irritated or why we have developed a resistance to antibiotics. However, antibiotics are only part of the equation that equates in health concerns. Livestock is given growth hormones because we want big, juicy pieces of meat in wide abundance. The naturally don't grow as fast and big as we consume them. Growth hormones do as they indicate - they grow cells. That problem is when cell growth in our bodies is stimulated by these residual substances and multiply beyond their natural rate of aggregation they can grow into various types of cancer.
‘Meatless Monday’ is not enough, as the World Health Organization states that the more meat you eat, the more likely carcinogens will be in your system, thereby creating cancer cells. The bottom line becomes clear: less meat equates to better health. People who eat no meat whatsoever are skinnier, live longer, and have a drastically lower chance of contracting life-threatening diseases such as cancer, Type II Diabetes, and cardiovascular issues. Red meats and processed red meats are among the worst of the meat foods, as they come from a variety of animal sources, and cause a smorgasbord of health issues. Without red meat consumption, the results for your body, mind, and spirit will feel healthier than ever before.
Sources
http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/
https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/world-health-organization-says-processed-meat-causes-cancer.html
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/risk-red-meat