- If you’re looking to make your diet more healthy, there are lots of changes you could make, including cutting out red meat in favor of white meat.
- Health Digest has put together a robust list of health benefits of ditching red meat.
- It’s important to note that swapping red meat for a healthy option is crucial.
It’s the start of a new year, and that means that there will be a whole lot of people making resolutions to improve their health. If you’re one of those people, congratulations on making the decision to better yourself! That’s the first step, and it’s a big one. If you’re looking for ways to modify your diet in order to be your best self, Health Digest has an idea.
The site recently published a huge rundown of all of the potential health benefits of cutting red meat completely out of your diet. Health experts have warned about the potential hazards of red meat in the past, including increased inflammation and potential heart ailments that are worsened by regular red meat consumption. However, there’s a big caveat to all of this advice which we’ll get to in a moment.
Red meat is one of the most popular foods on the planet. It comes in many forms, with the hearty beef steak being the most obvious example. If you can stand to cut things like steak, beef hamburgers, and other red meat out of your diet, you could improve your health. Here’s what Health Digest says you can look forward to if you can make it happen:
- You could lose weight
- You might lean on other protein sources
- You could knock down some inflammation
- Your gut health may improve
- You may eat less saturated fat
- You may reduce your risk of heart disease
- You may reduce your risk of stroke
- Your risk for type 2 diabetes may go down
- Your risk of kidney disease may go down
- Your risk of colon cancer may go down
- Your risk of some types of breast cancer may go down
- Your brain may remain healthier with age
- You could live longer
Now, that’s a pretty impressive list of potential health benefits, right? There’s a lot to unpack here, and if you’d like to see all the evidence associated with each of these claims you can head over to the source and examine those for yourself, but there’s one thing we should absolutely make clear.
All of the health benefits listed here relies entirely on the assumption that you’re replacing your red meat habit with healthy white meat or plant-based protein options. Ditching a Friday night steak for a bucket of fried chicken isn’t going to do anything good for your health. Likewise, stopping red meat consumption and filling up on simple carbohydrates instead comes with its own long list of health risks.
Research has shown that red meat may increase your risk of certain ailments. That being said, there’s really no type of food that hasn’t been shown to be harmful in some way if eaten in excess. If you like red meat and you’re not having burgers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, cutting a steak out of your diet might not do a whole lot, but it’s something to keep in mind when you’re aiming for a balanced and overall healthy diet.
