Many don’t see the harm in eating a couple of hot dogs, French fries and big slice of chocolate cream pie. However, researchers discovered that eating these kinds of Western-style foods might increase one’s risk of stroke, colon caner, and heart disease. Moreover, they found such foods might also increase one’s chances of developing type 2 diabetes, the most common form of this disease that usually occurs in adulthood.
According to a study, those who frequently ate Western-style foods were 50 percent more likely to develop diabetes than those who didn't.
The study lasted 14 years and involved nearly 70,000 diabetes-free women. At the end of the study, 2,699 women developed type 2 diabetes; both a Western diet and eating red and processed meats raised their risk. It was also concluded that women who ate a rich prudent diet decreased their risk.
A prudent diet consists of:
After further dissecting the data, researchers found that the more red and processed meats people consumed, the higher their risk of diabetes rose. For example, any additional daily serving of red meat increased one's risk of diabetes by 26 percent, while another serving of processed meat raised the risk by 40 percent.
The reason behind these risk-rates can be linked to how these meats are cooked. Researchers discovered that when red meats and other foods high in fat are cooked at high temperatures, a dangerous substance is formed, triggering the development of diabetes.
Archives of Internal Medicine November 8, 2004;164(20
I have addressed this issue of processed meats and diabetes before in a past newsletter article, so this article is just further confirmation that eating red and processed meats is detrimental to your health.
Your best bet is to stay away from most commercial brands of meat.
Most of the meat you will find in grocery stores largely comes from grain-fed cattle full of hormones and antibiotics. Therefore, if you want to obtain the nutritional benefits you need from red meat without fearing the health-risks involved, I suggest seeking to use GRASS-fed and organic meat whenever possible. This means it is free from chemicals and hormones that can have a negative impact on your health.
If you are interested in learning more about how processed and packaged foods compromise your health, I suggest getting a copy of The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat, by Dr. Loren Cordain. Based upon scientific research examining the types and quantities of foods our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate, the foundation of the book is to eat lean meat, (including ostrich and bison) as well as organ meats, seafood, fresh fruit and non-starchy vegetables.
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