If I understand this research project correctly, here's what apparently happened. A PhD student surveyed some of the data available at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to search for a correlation between sugar and meat availability in various countries. Note that no effort was made to determine how or even if these 2 commodities were actually consumed in the respective countries. All that mattered in the study was how much sugar and how much meat was available in those countries. And by a smooth twist of the imagination, that student decided that the mere fact that sugar and meat were both available in all of the respective countries, and obesity was a health problem in all of those countries, and the quantities of sugar and meat in those countries appeared to be correlated with obesity rates, then by George, meat and sugar must be equally guilty of causing obesity in those countries.
I'm guessing that his next research project will be to show that most obese people in those countries own automobiles, so therefore obesity is clearly correlated with automobile ownership. Or something equally asinine.
Evidently Australian researchers at the University of Adelaide are either biased against meat, or they just have way too much time on their hands. Note that the student who did this so-called research made this comment:
"There is a dogma that fats and carbohydrates, especially fats, are the major factors contributing to obesity," Mr You says.
Meat consumption contributing to global obesity"Whether we like it or not, fats and carbohydrates in modern diets are supplying enough energy to meet our daily needs. Because meat protein is digested later than fats and carbohydrates, this makes the energy we receive from protein a surplus, which is then converted and stored as fat in the human body."
Oh really? I for one would like to see a little proof of the validity of that claim, since it contradicts common sense.
What he's really saying is that whatever is digested last is the reason why we get fat. That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it. I can eat 10 pounds of chocolate, and then chase it with a 4 ounce steak. And if that overdose of chocolate doesn't kill me (because it will be digested first), then that unhealthy 4 ounce steak will be the reason why I gain weight on that particular diet.
And look at how all the other meat-haters glom onto such drivel and add to the propagation of convoluted misinformation:
Meat contributes to obesity as much as sugar, research suggests
Here's a link to the original research article:
Meat in Modern Diet, Just as Bad as Sugar, Correlates with Worldwide Obesity: An Ecological Analysis
Gabes, if you should ever get bored, and need some exercise, you might consider doing science a favor and going down to Adelaide to kick that idiot's ass hard enough to jar some common sense into his addled brain.
I believe that's the most pathetic attempt to publish trash as truth that I've ever seen, but maybe I'm just getting old and forgetful.
If anyone can see where I'm misinterpreting that research, please don't hesitate to correct me.
Tex
