It seems that the call to completely abstain from meat is a fashionable trend now, so is it justified, and what happens to the body when you abstain from eating meat?
Although studies have shown that eating meat has negative effects on human health, the damage occurs when you eat too much meat, or eat unhealthy processed or cooked meat.
Let's start by learning about some of the benefits of meat, which when you refuse to eat it can lead to you being deprived of it and possibly causing you problems.
What are the benefits of meat?
1- Reducing appetite and enhancing hunger control, according to studies.
2- Maintaining muscle mass in the body, which is very important, because muscles maintain body strength, and help in burning more calories and thus combat obesity.
3- Animal protein in meat, according to studies, may improve bone density and strength.
4- Get better absorption of iron, as meat contains heme iron, which your body absorbs better than non-heme iron in plant foods such as lentils.
Potential damages
Nutrition expert Tilman Kuhn says - according to what Deutsche Welle quoted from the German "FOCUS Online" website - "Those who eat vegetarian food do not need anything, but scientific studies have shown that plant nutrition is very healthy."
Studies have shown that the diet of those who eat a lot of meat is usually unhealthy, because it contains saturated fats and other harmful products, which leaves no room for healthy eating.
But there are no absolute facts
Focus Online warns against seeing the matter from the perspective of "vegetarians versus meat eaters" or vice versa. Studies examine the effect of different foods on the human body in laboratories, but our bodies are more complex than being placed in boxes, where many factors interfere with determining health standards. Good, such as genetic and environmental factors such as smoking, exercise, psychological state, etc.
Although studies say that reducing or cutting off meat is beneficial to health, they have not been able to conclusively prove this or generalize that to all types of meat.
Some argue that eating meat by itself is not the only one responsible for infecting the body with diseases, but the problem is in the way it is cooked or processed.
For example, red meat may be processed and manufactured with preservatives that cause health problems such as cancerous tumors and heart disease, and these materials are seen by the body's immune system as foreign bodies, which drives it to fight them through acute inflammation that affects all organs and functions of the body negatively.
Studies have shown that red meat is largely responsible for cancer diseases, especially stomach cancer, according to the Focus Online website.
In some comparative studies, white meat, such as poultry, was less harmful to human health, according to the website.
Also, the heating process that the meat goes through causes the formation of carcinogenic substances, so processed meat is one of the most dangerous meats to health, according to the site.
Focus Online reports the results of a study conducted on 9,000 people by the Max Planck Institute and the University of Leipzig, which showed that the less red meat a person consumed, the lower his body mass index (BMI).
Study author Evelyn Midawar says the site is the fat and sugar in animal products that cause obesity.
How to eat meat in a healthy way to obtain its benefits and avoid potential harm?
1- Choose unprocessed meats, stay away from sausages, mortadella, and preserved meats.
2- Reduce the high cooking temperature, and when grilling try to boil the meat until it is done, then place it on the grill to give it a quick roasting.
3- Do not overcook the meat until it has charred.
4- Do not over-eat meat in general, and according to the Deutsche Welle website, the German Dietetic Association recommends not exceeding 600 grams of meat per week.