Red meat ‘good for environment and health’: scientists push back at global anti-meat agenda

Australians seeking an environmentally friendly, healthy diet should keep eating red meat, says the CSIRO’s former principal research scientist, who warns against blindly adopting global dietary guidelines that reduce meat intake.

Brad Ridoutt, who last year was controversially asked to leave the review of Australia’s official dietary guidelines, told The ­Australian any revised advice should be based on Australian research and not “unreliable” global modelling.

CSIRO research on Australians’ eating habits showed the best diets, from a nutritional and environmental perspective, were those with predominantly meat-based proteins.

“When we look at the diets in Australia that are most aligned with the current dietary guidelines and have the lowest environmental impact, we find (it is) those that have 60 to 80 per cent of protein coming from animal source foods,” Dr Ridoutt said.

“And those diets that have the lowest levels of animal-sourced protein are the worst in many, many ways.”

His intervention comes amid growing concern in the meat industry and among some scientists that this CSIRO research will not be given sufficient weight in a landmark review of National Health and Medical Research Council dietary guidelines.

The current guidelines, in place since 2013, recommend Australians daily consume “a wide variety” of foods from the five food groups.

They specify this includes “lean meats and poultry, fish, eggs”, as well as “tofu, nuts and seeds and legumes/beans” and “milk, yoghurt and cheese”.

However, there are concerns the revised guidelines may be more in line with the Planetary Health Diet, which stipulates “modest amounts of animal-sourced foods” and says red meat should be “limited due to strong evidence of health risks”.

AUSTRALIA’S NHMRC GUIDELINES

DAILY

Wide variety from each group

• Vegetables, including different types and colours, and legumes/beans
• Fruit
• Grain (cereal) foods, mostly wholegrain and/or high cereal fibre varieties, such as breads, cereals, rice, pasta, noodles, polenta, couscous, oats, quinoa and barley ‘
• Lean meats and poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts and seeds
• Milk, yoghurt, cheese and/or their alternatives, mostly reduced fat

Dr Ridoutt, one of a number of scientists to speak at an International Summit of the Societal Role of Meat and Livestock, in Geelong, said Australian dietary guidelines must be based on local evidence.

“That takes into account the local food production system, the local environmental constraints and challenges, the local food culture, the local public health nutrition challenges and the sources of widely consumed nutrients,” Dr Ridoutt said.

“That local evidence is far superior to global modelling that is not necessarily specifically relevant to Australia and which is based on broadbased assumptions. I feel the global modelling is unreliable.”

Dr Ridoutt, who was asked to leave the NHMRC sustainability review committee after declaring industry-funded research, said he was “disappointed” by this decision, believing the funding was not a “barrier” to his expert input.

He said the CSIRO research was based on thousands of daily diets from the Australian Health Survey, assessed against the nutritional guidelines and key environmental criteria.

“We find those diets that are predominantly plant-based are least likely to achieve recommended intake of a broad range of nutrients,” he said. “Whereas those diets which are stronger in animal-sourced foods … are the most likely to achieve a broad range of nutrients at the adequate levels.

“As the ratio of animal source protein increases, total protein also increases but total energy intake decreases. And that’s good because protein is well known to contribute to a sense of fullness and fullness for longer.

“This is important because … two-thirds of Australian adults are either overweight or obese.”

Former Australian of the Year James Muecke, experienced eye surgeon and Metabolic Health Association ambassador, joined the growing scientific push-back against the Planetary Health Diet.

PLANETARY HEALTH DIET

DAILY, 5+ SERVINGS

• Fruit and vegetables

DAILY, 2-3 SERVINGS

• Legumes

DAILY, 1-2 SERVINGS

• Tree nuts and peanuts

WEEKLY, 2 SERVINGS

• Chicken or other poultry
• Fish and shellfish

WEEKLY, 2 IN TOTAL

• Eggs

WEEKLY, 1 PORTION

• Beef, pork or lamb

Dr Muecke told the summit the anti-meat dietary agenda was based on “flawed and fraudulent” science and vested interests, from producers of ultra-processed foods to the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

He urged Australians to “just eat real food and don’t be afraid of red meat”. “Unlike ultra-processed products, red meat is satiating and difficult to overeat,” Dr Muecke said.

“It’s also nutritious and replete with protein, micronutrients, and other beneficial and highly bioavailable compounds, especially vitamin B12, zinc and iron. Red meat is critical to the health of millions, if not billions, of people worldwide.

“The current narrative of discouraging red meat consumption risks increasing poor health outcomes, especially if people turn to, or are directed to, industrially created ultra-processed and synthetic substances.”

Spanish ecologist and livestock scientist Professor Pablo Manzano told the summit the contribution of methane-producing cows and sheep to climate change had been “greatly overstated”.

“Most of the impact is related to methane emissions, which derive from the fermentation of cellulose – which, in turn, is most abundant in rangelands and in grass-based livestock systems,” said Professor Manzano, of the Basque Centre for Climate Change in Spain.

“It is therefore grass-based systems that get the accusation of being worse for the climate. However, such systems are the ones that better imitate the ecology of wild herbivores.”

In Australia, this included giant wombats and kangaroos that roamed long before Europeans arrived with livestock.

“As they are occupying the same ecological niche of wild herbivores, (livestock) emissions should be considered to a large extent natural and inevitable, and not artificial,” Professor Manzano said.

“So the recommendation to intensify livestock production or switch to plant-based diets may actually be counter-productive in climatic terms.”

Adam Coffey, beef farmer and deputy chair of Cattle Australia, questioned whether sustainability needed to be considered as part of dietary guidelines.

“The base calculations and metrics that underpin sustainability, particularly from a red meat point of view, don’t tell the whole story,” Mr Coffey said. “They focus on a myopic view of one-way methane emissions but don’t paint the whole picture.”