Meat Increases Early Death

If you thought consuming a diet consisting of red meat only upped your odds for clogged arteries, malignant cancers, and mad cow disease, here’s one more health malady to mark on your list: death. In the first large study of its kind, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers found that regularly eating pork and beef increased participants’ overall risk for premature death. The National Cancer Institute surveyed more than 500,000 middle-aged and elderly Americans, discovering that those who consumed four ounces of red meat per day were more than 30 percent more likely to die during the course of the ten-year study. If that’s not scary enough, consider the fact that red meat intake also increases water shortages, pollution, energy expenditure, and greenhouse gas emissions—and put down your meat-filled fork while you‘re at it.