Hi {{ first_name }},

It might be time to forget everything you thought you knew - today we’re going to bust some myths and reveal why you shouldn’t worry about consuming beef and why you should actually consider eating more of it. Let’s be clear that none of what I’m about to say is medical advice.

For decades, we've been told that red meat is a killer. "Avoid beef - it's bad for your health." It’s not surprising that beef consumption has declined over the past 40+ years. But here's the shocking part - over that same time period, we've grown fatter and sicker, and things aren’t slowing down.

With obesity, diabetes, and heart disease all on the rise, we’ve rejected beef because we've been conditioned to believe it’s to blame for clogging our arteries, increasing various cancer risks, and packing on the pounds. After all, it's loaded with artery-clogging saturated fat and cholesterol...right?

I wouldn’t go that far though. The real story behind our obesity is fascinating (which we're going to tackle each and every week in this newsletter) and I hope I can help you question everything you thought you knew about beef.

People Who Avoid Beef will Struggle to Lose Weight

Today you’re going to learn:

• What we got wrong about beef
  • We’ll focus on cholesterol and saturated fat
• Why beef is actually healthy for us

What We Got Wrong About Saturated Fat and Cholesterol

I have a love/hate with science and research studies. They can be manipulated, contorted and interpreted in any which way. There are a couple of main issues with many studies, but let’s focus on saturated fats and cholesterol:

• Healthy user bias with observational studies (questionnaires)
• The type of saturated fat consumed is important.

When it comes to healthy user bias in observational studies, a person who eats very little saturated fat may be more health inclined, and might also prioritize sleep, meditation, and regular exercise. A person who eats more saturated fat may also drink more alcohol, sleep less, not work out at all, and eat a lot of french fries. But just because the research is only considering saturated fat, they can claim an association between reduced saturated fat consumption and a “25%” reduction in heart disease (More below).

Additionally, many studies, even animal studies, may use lard as a saturated fat source. This in my opinion is a poor quality saturated fat source since it contains high levels of polyunsaturated fats due to the fact that pigs eat a lot of grain.

Fun fact: There have actually been studies done on animals where coconut oil (over 92% saturated fat) was the primary saturated fat consumed. Ironically, this consumption of coconut oil led to reductions in body fat. 

There are a few studies that helped define the saturated fat and heart disease narrative, but the results are questionable at best.

• The Seven Countries Study (Observational Study), which followed over 12,000 men from seven different countries for 20 years. The study found that men who ate the most saturated fat had the highest risk of heart disease. Numerous people have scrutinized this study, claiming that the lead researcher originally analyzed data on over 20 countries, but cherry picked data from the seven countries that aligned with his beliefs and hypothesis.
• The Minnesota Coronary Experiment (Randomized Controlled Trial), which randomly assigned over 3,200 men to either a low-fat diet or a control diet. The study found that the low-fat diet did not reduce the risk of heart disease. The intervention group's diet was designed to provide 10% of calories from saturated fat, 15% of calories from polyunsaturated fat, and 65% of calories from carbohydrates.
  • The control group in the Minnesota Coronary Experiment (MCE) consumed a diet that was similar to the typical American diet at the time. The diet was “high” in saturated fat, with about 15% of calories coming from saturated fat. The diet was also high in cholesterol, with about 400 milligrams of cholesterol (~2 eggs) per day.
  • The control group's diet included a lot of animal products, such as meat, poultry, and dairy products. It also included a lot of processed foods, such as cakes, cookies, and chips - Which are foods that contain a lot of refined oils and polyunsaturated fats. This is a big red flag to me.

• The Nurses' Health Study (Observational Study), which followed over 80,000 women for 20 years. This study found that women who ate the most saturated fat had a slightly higher risk of heart disease, but the risk was not statistically significant. The more important finding was that there was no increased risk of overall mortality when people consumed more saturated fat. This study also found no significant association between dietary cholesterol and the risk of heart disease.
• The Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (Observational Study), which followed over 40,000 men for 20 years. The study found that men who ate the most saturated fat had a slightly higher risk of heart disease, but the risk was also not statistically significant. It also found no significant association between dietary cholesterol and the risk of heart disease.

Though I shouldn’t do this, I can’t help but compare this saturated fat/cholesterol fiasco to smoking, but I will, because saturated fat and cholesterol are almost as vilified as smoking.

My problem with many studies on the consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol is that the evidence isn’t robust enough to suggest that saturated fat is even bad for you. In 2017, a Lancet study showed that by reducing your saturated fat consumption, there’s a 25% reduction in heart disease. Cool - Is that a convincing or significant reduction though?

Now how much do you think smoking increases your risk of getting lung cancer? A 25% increase like saturated fat and heart disease? What about 100%? 200%?

It’s estimated that smoking actually increases your risk of getting cancer by 1500-3000% compared to those who don’t smoke. Wow. That’s incredibly convincing to me that I should never pick up smoking.

So if you don’t smoke, you lower your chances of getting lung cancer by 1500-3000%. If you lower your saturated fat consumption, you lower your risk of getting heart disease by 25%. And then there’s overall mortality - to reiterate from the above studies, there isn’t even a statistically significant difference with eating low amounts of saturated fat and death and high amounts of saturated fat and death. It’s all basically the same.

The Benefits: Why Beef is Actually Healthy for Us and Can Help With Fat Loss

Now the problem with all of this is that, by reducing your consumption of beef and saturated fats, you’re likely doing more harm than good.

Let’s face it - we live in a highly toxic world. I would argue that nearly all meat should be healthy for humans, but due to pollution, sketchy farming practices, and strategies to increase yield per animal, we’re mostly eating horrible quality meat all across the board.

To me, beef is the least toxic. And in many cases, it can even be considered a superfood.

Let’s go over some of the benefits of consuming saturated fat from beef (coconut oil too):

• Saturated fat is high in lauric, palmitic, and stearic acid which can help reduce cortisol, the stress hormone that’s widely known to cause fat accumulation.
• People who are overweight or obese often see high levels of estrogen, and stearic acid, a saturated fat, is an estrogen receptor antagonist, so it can help decrease estrogen levels. This is great for fat loss.
• Saturated fat can actually improve thyroid health which is your main metabolic driver in your body. So by eating this, you’ll literally increase your metabolic rate.

Here are some beneficial roles that cholesterol plays in the human body:

• Cholesterol is a vital structural component of cell membranes. It helps regulate membrane fluidity and permeability. Cell membranes need an optimal fluidity to properly interact with proteins and receptors. Saturated fats provide stability as well. In fact, it’s the polyunsaturated fats that make the cell membranes more hydrophilic (attracted to water and water logged) which is not good for cellular health.
• Cholesterol is the precursor of many hormones like testosterone, pregnenolone, progesterone, aldosterone, vitamin D, and bile acids. These hormones are essential for reproduction, metabolism, immune function and fat loss.
• The brain contains a large amount of cholesterol, helping nerve cells communicate. Cholesterol supports the nervous system and also facilitates the release of neurotransmitters. Low cholesterol levels can even impact cognitive function.
• Cholesterol is critical in the structure and function of bile acids, which help digest and absorb fats and fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E and K. These vitamins are vital for overall health, hormone function, and fat loss.
• Cholesterol and saturated fatty acids found in red meat are also anabolic, and encourage balanced hormone production

Other benefits of eating beef (You DO NOT want to miss out on this)

• Beef contains highly bioavailable protein, which encourages balanced thyroid hormone synthesis, is great for your metabolism, and for building/maintaining muscle.
• Beef is high in a variety of micronutrients, particularly B vitamins which are incredibly important cofactors in energy production in our cells. A diet low in B-vitamins can lead to impaired cellular energy production (we talked about impaired mitochondrial function last week)
• Beef is also high in minerals like zinc, selenium, and copper.
• Beef contains nutrients like creatine, carnosine, carnitine, and taurine, which you cannot get with a plant based diet.
• Beef liver is one of the most nutrient dense superfoods available. It's a great source of everything in beef, plus chromium, molybdenum, choline and vitamin A
• Beef gelatin is high in the amino acids glycine and proline which are both anti-inflammatory and can help with reducing cortisol levels.
• Beef is the best tasting meat (according to me 😁)

If you don't eat much beef you may want to reconsider, especially if you want to lose weight.

Actionable Tip for the Week:

⭐️ Prioritize beef as a protein and fat source if you want to lose weight ⭐️

Additional Tips for the Week:

🥩 Grass-fed is preferred, but not necessary 🥩

🥩 Grass-fed ground beef is great and affordable 🥩 

Cheers,

Tim 

PS: I take requests and suggestions. Let me know if there's anything you want me to write about or make a video about. Would love to hear from you!

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