How Much is Too Much?

So as we've said here on the Flexitarian Pledge before, we as a nation are eating more meat than we need to nutritionally.  With recent links between red meat and many long term health conditions, perhaps in fact we are eating more meat than is good for us.

According to their statistics red meat has been linked to increased risk in:

• Elevated cholesterol
• Bowel cancer
• Heart disease 

But how much is too much?

According the the NHS and the Department of Health people who are currently eating 90g a day of cooked meat need to reduce this down to 70g a day.

Let's put that into context, what is 70g?  It certainly sounds smaller than my usual steak size!  Well the bad news is a fry up containing two sausages and two rashers of bacon is thought to be around 130g!!!  So already that would be almost double the recommended daily meat intake.  Ironically a McDonald's BigMac....... is within the recommended limit, coming in at 70g!  So does this mean BigMacs are healthy?  I suspect not, but it gives us a bit of an idea of what 70g of meat looks like.

This video by 'BritishNutrition' on YouTube has put together a handy video discussing grams of meat to help make this more clear.

But let us not give meat a purely bad name.  There are good things about it too (and I am not just talking about the taste).  Meat is a good source of protein, iron and vitamin B12. However, with all these elements also being easily accessible from non-meat sources (e.g. beans/pulses = protein, lentils and spinach = iron and, cottage cheese = B12) then perhaps an odd meat-free day is a good option to help us keep as healthy as possible and allow us a guilt free big meaty treat every so often!