I recommend nothing. I said it is my BELIEF that athletes need to eat animal protein. By the way, a fish qualifies as an animal. I have nothing against vegans but when I played college football, I was much stronger when I ate red meat. When I ate equivalent amounts of chicken or fish, I did not achieve the same levels. I believe it was higher creatine content in red meat. As for tumors, as has been stated ad nauseum in this thread, there is ZERO concrete evidence that links animal protein to cancer. NONE. Please find one verifiable study that absolutely links it to cancer. Race, you have your own belief system as I do mine. I don not try to bring people to my way of doing things, I just state what I do and believe. I do not however, try to bolster my position with anecdotal science. There are a host of factors in cancer development, many far too complex for 99% of us on this forum to grasp. I know 3 professors who do cancer research and it is amazing how complex the issue truly is. It isn’t so simple as “just don’t eat red meat”.
Some thoughts on points raised in this thread
-Correlation does not equal causation. Without a tightly controlled study accounting for all other variables, trying to imply more than a casual relationship between two variables is misleading and irresponsible. The studies posted on red meat show no more than a relationship-not one thing causing the another.
-Media often does a crappy job of reporting science-get it from the source.
-Consider confounding variables-could it be that people that eat more red meat, eat more food in general, have a poor diet, don’t exercise etc. As I alluded to in the link I posted there are hundreds of lifestyle factors linked to cancer.
-I highly recommend the book “Bad Science” by Ben Goldacre for anyone looking for an understanding of the scientific process and common pitfalls the masses fall in to.
-Critical thinking/interpretation of the scientific method should be taught in schools.
-Getting a little off topic, the nutrition market is worth a lot of money. That’s why there’s so much bullshit out there. Consumers fall for the marketing despite a lack of science to back it up. A self imposed tax on scientific ignorance. Guys like Lyle and Alan Aragon are a breath of fresh air for their sound evidence based approaches.
AJP, that was a beautiful and concise summary of the problem with a lot of studies, even done in the academic arena. Always be leery of who sourced the study grant. It is always on any true study.