Beef Is Healthier Than Chicken
Since the latter part of the twentieth century, chicken consumption has skyrocketed. Compared to other meats, chicken demand continues to prove monumental prevalence within the American diet.
Not only is the average American consuming more chicken, but the fitness and health industry is also continuing to build its reputation around chicken. A considerable factor in this increase is the work of Dr. Robert Baker. Inside the labs of Cornell, Dr. Baker worked endlessly creating plenty of uses for chicken. The most notorious is the chicken nugget. Dr. Baker helped demonstrate to society the versatility of chicken.
Due to the American Heart Association, the government, and several other external influences labeling red meat as a major carcinogen, red meat began to lose its place on the plate. Lean white meat emerged as a healthier replacement. However, society has contracted the wrong idea.
Clarification
A clarification must be made before continuing:
I am not arguing for the complete and full exclusion of chicken from one’s diet. Rather, I am presenting rationale and data to show the health benefits and misconceptions of beef.
Ideally, one would consume pasture-raised, low-PUFA chicken. Consumption would not be everyday, but rather a few times a week.
Furthermore, in the article, I am arguing grass-fed beef (an example of the superiority of grass-fed beef) over grain-fed chicken. Some may see this as an invalid comparison. However, my reasoning is simple. Grass-fed beef is relatively easy to find. Within my small town, I can easily access it at any grocery store near me. However, pasture-raised, low-PUFA chicken is significantly harder to find. Many grocery stores do not care to carry any. Due to the lack of demand for pasture-raised, low-PUFA chicken, the great majority of chicken consumption will be grain fed.
Ancestors and Evolution
Before presenting the scientific facts, logic can be a beneficial tool towards understanding diet.
For hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years, humans have evolved eating red meat. Looking at individual diets in the United States, red meat consumption has been in a downward plummet since the early twentieth century. However, chronic disease continues to double, triple, and even quadruple in the twenty-first century.
Tribes still continue to thrive on the consumption of red meat (along with fruit, nuts, and certain vegetables). In smaller communities, red meat is viewed as another form of “gold” with its powerful impact on one’s health, consequently offering “riches” but in the form of wellness.
Ancestral living required foods such as beef, bison, and elk.
The nature of a human continues to prove the necessity of red meat. For example, the gut of a human has a low pH (1.5–2.5 roughly). The low pH supports the gut in digesting both protein and fat. When compared to other animals, humans are closely related to those of carnivore diets. On the contrary, humans are quite distant from herbivores as they have higher pH levels of 4 or higher.
Evolutionary Inappropriate Diet
Chickens are monogastric animals. A stomach with only a single compartment is unable to saturate fats (removing the double bond from the polyunsaturated fats). Due to this, chickens accumulate polyunsaturated fats from the grain feed.
Unlike chickens, ruminants (for example, cows) have a stomach with four chambers. The compartments allow for the ability to saturate fats. The significance of the multiple chamber stomach is that evolutionary-correct diets are easier maintained and the digestion process is much more smoother.
Moreover, the grain feed is a new addition in the diet of chickens. Polyunsaturated fats can not be made within the body but rather have to be accumulated through external sources. The new addition is in direct correlation with Americans’ disease-stricken society. Poultry, as well as other meats such as pork or bacon, are not fed evolutionary-appropriate diets.
The Health Benefits of Beef
Red meat is notorious for being labeled as one of the weaker aspects of the American diet. Many individuals continue to consider any form of red meat as unhealthy or altogether, unnecessary (purely an “over-consumed treat”).
In the majority of studies done on red meat, the meat used is typically cheap, grain-fed, sourced from a dirty or corrupt factory, and filled with hormones (the linked source offers an entire section on the toxicity of grain-fed beef). However, grass-fed beef is an entirely different story.
Looking at the nutrients specifically, grass-fed beef is a phenomenal addition to a diet.
Nutrients such as choline, creatine, carnitine, carnosine, taurine, anserine, 4-hydroxyproline, and B12 are quite specific to beef. Other more common nutrients such as zinc (supports an array of functions) and iron (perfect for runners) are found as well.
A study done a couple of years ago illustrated the anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory benefits of taurine, creatine, carnosine, anserine and 4-hydroxyproline. Not to mention the metabolic, retinal, immunological, muscular, cartilage, neurological, and cardiovascular advantages. Only thirty grams of beef is needed to fulfill human needs for these various amino acids, dipeptides, and creatine.
Choline is another nutrient found strictly (in adequate amounts) in animal-based foods such as beef. A deficiency of choline causes cognitive decline (yet another time that the vegan-based diet is linked to Alzheimer’s) and low energy production with fatigue.
Non-beef eaters (such as those that praise chicken) simply can not keep up. B12 (1, 2, and 3) does not fail to further prove this claim.
None of this matters if the person is unable to digest any of the food. Luckily, humans are packed with a low pH gut (as talked about earlier). The gut actively absorbs nutrients in fat and protein, as studied with vitamin B2.
Linoleic Acid
Linoleic acid is a polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acid. More often than not, individuals consume linoleic acid through seed oils. However, many other foods/ingredients contain linoleic acid.
“When you consume an excess amount, it begins breaking down into toxic metabolites, such as aldehydes and acrolein. Linoleic acid goes rancid relatively quickly. Linoleic acid causes an increase in free radicals, in lipid peroxidation, and insulin resistance at the cellular level.” (1)
Electrons travel in pairs around the atom. Sometimes, an electron may lose its partner. When this occurs, the unpaired electrons start to ensue chaos. The chaos ends up severely damaging cells and DNA. The unpaired electron is known as a free radical, the basis of oxidation.
Lipid peroxidation increases with the occurrence of free radicals. The severity of free radicals can be demonstrated through The Smoker’s Paradox. As presented in The Great Cholesterol Myth, “smokers with normal LDL (the so-called ‘bad’ cholesterol) levels have a much higher risk of heart disease than nonsmokers with elevated LDL levels.”
Essentially, free radicals are abundant in the smoke of cigarettes. The free radicals cause the constriction of the arteries, allowing for more oxidation leading to heart disease. In some cases, oxidation can lead to fatty liver disease.
Not only can lipid peroxidation be directly linked to heart disease, but many studies show a plentiful amount of other negative side effects.
One of the most concerning is the link between lipid peroxidation and the development of MDA and 4-HNE. MDA, malondialdehyde, is a toxic molecule used as a marker for oxidative stress. The molecule is classified as atherogenic (promotes the formation of plaque within the arteries), virtually a cause of heart disease. 4-HNE (talked about a bit more here) is a deadly aldehyde promoting immense levels of toxicity in the human body.
Another study illustrated the role lipid peroxidation plays in aging, “Consistent evidence supports the hypothesis that a progressive accumulation of oxidative damage to important cellular molecules is a fundamental mechanism involved in most senescence-associated alterations” which further establishes the incorrect nature of society’s views on linoleic acid. Practicó (the author) concluded that lipid peroxidation ultimately damaged the cell membrane. As the cell membrane is damaged, protein structure begins to become altered placing a hindrance on the function which would, “culminate in a substantial reduction in cell survival.”
A similar study showed a parallel conclusion, Impact of Lipid Peroxidation on the Physiology and Pathophysiology of Cell Membranes.
One last study worth noting before moving on is Lipid peroxidation, oxidative stress genes, and dietary factors in breast cancer protection: a hypothesis. The importance of this particular study is the contradiction often found within dietary discussion. The majority of individuals hold the idea of red meat being a harsh carcinogen. However, researchers found data supporting the opposite idea: lipid peroxidation results in breast cancer. The irony of the conclusion is that lipid peroxidation comes from polyunsaturated fatty acids (the fat in not only chicken but also seed oils!).
Moreover, linoleic acid can contribute to insulin resistance. The insulin hormone aids in regulating blood sugar (glucose) levels. Insulin resistance causes the body’s cells to react inefficiently when dealing with insulin. Glucose is unable to enter the cells as easily as before, thus it accumulates in the blood.
All of these studies and sources collaborate in showing the horrific side effects of linoleic acid on humans. Why does this matter in an essay about chicken and beef?
This study, fatty acid composition of beef, pork, and poultry fresh cuts, and some of their processed products, showed that chickens have a “high content of linoleic [acid] (19.54%)” compared to beef, where the majority of their fatty acid composition is stearic acid and conjugated linoleic acid.
Stearic Acid
To start on the topic of stearic acid, Fire In A Bottle shares a quick yet informative article on the body fat of obese individuals. According to a study on Stearoyl-CoA Desaturase-1, “obese adults produce 2–3 times as much of the enzyme as do lean adults, resulting in fat that is significantly more unsaturated. In addition, obese adults also had much higher levels of polyunsaturated fats. Polyunsaturated fats can only come from the diet.”
Conveniently, the same article talks about the well-known stearic acid and visceral fat study. To put it simply, mice with a larger composition of stearic acid both maintained a healthy weight and lost unneeded fat on a stearic-rich diet.
Not only does stearic acid naturally fight off abdominal fat, but goes a step further in fighting against type 2 diabetes.
With all of the active defense, stearic acid must not go much further in potential health benefits. However, stearic acid upholds a good reputation for efficiently regulating the mitochondria (decreasing the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer).
Conjugated Linoleic Acid
Not to be confused with linoleic acid, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is an all-natural, made by the human body fatty acid. Ruminants contain the majority of CLA in nature.
CLA may be one of the most potent defenses against cancer. In an experiment focused on tumor growth, laboratory animals that consumed a small percentage of CLA (as little as 0.1 percent of total calories) demonstrated an immense reduction in tumor growth.
Another study, but rather on humans, found that women who had the highest levels of CLA in their diet showcased a low risk of breast cancer (up to 60% lower than those with lower levels). A polish study furthered this idea by doing another study on CLA and breast cancer. The study found the diet to be a crucial indicator of cancer risk. Specifically, fat consumption in which the data represented CLA to be an important protective measure towards various cancers but especially, breast cancer.
The current atmosphere of health tends to shy away from insulin. Despite insulin resistance’s known prevalence, many health “experts” fail to properly address solutions. CLA was found to not only not present any sort of diabetes risk, but CLA offers an active insulin regulator nature.
CLA seems to be a general superpower against chronic illness and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Conclusion
Each claim provides an accessible source with high quality testing and results, minimizing corrupt studies based on misleading titles and unworthy data.
While the debate over chicken and beef remains controversial, the logic and science is clear.
