Steak It Or Leave It?

Meat has been a hot topic lately – often when scientists, doctors or campaigners have called for us to eat less of it, either for health or environmental reasons. Will cutting down on meat really help to save the planet? Or make us healthier? Is it really that simple? Well, the simple answer is that, erm, no, it's not that simple and it depends what the meat is, how it was raised and who's eating it.

- Ian Eddy

EATING LESS

Let’s start with a simple question: why do we eat meat anyway? It’s a fact that we don’t need it in our diets, and many people around the world live long, healthy lives without it. But eating meat, and especially learning how to cook it, is thought to partly explain how humans evolved into the super-smart apes we are today.

Animals happen to be incredibly good at turning something that humans can’t eat, such as grass or the stalks of crops, into meat that’s tasty and packed full of great quality protein, minerals and vitamins that are more difficult to get from other foods.

Protein is made up of 20 things called amino acids, and while our bodies can make 11 of those, we need to get the other nine from our food. Things like meat, fish and eggs are what’s known as complete proteins, because they all contain those nine crucial amino acids. But it’s a myth that you have to eat meat to get all of these, as there are plenty of other non-animal foods or combinations that are complete proteins too, such as quinoa, or even peanut butter on wholewheat toast!

The vast majority of scientists and health organisations agree that in Western countries like the UK and US we eat too much protein – maybe up to 100% too much. Now, although eating too much isn’t necessarily a problem, it depends where you’re getting that protein from. If you’re eating a ton of fatty meat, that also means you’ll be getting a lot of saturated fat in your diet, but it could also mean that you’re not getting a wide enough variety of plant protein in your diet and missing out on some vitamins and minerals.

On average, UK kids aged 4-10 are only getting 2.7 of their five-a-day and only 7% of their protein is coming from vegetables, fruit and juice, so many are missing out on the variety that they need. We also generally eat less fish than the NHS recommends.