Eating meat – is it healthy or not?
In a nutshell
Evidence from across 175 regions of the world supports meat's benefits for longevity
Recent publications challenge old claims that red meat causes heart disease
Vegetarian and vegan diets can be healthy with dairy and artificial supplements
On 7 January 2026, new Dietary Guidelines for Americans were released. For various reasons, I view them as “a game-changing improvement” over previous versions. One important reason is the positive recommendation that meat be part of a healthy diet after decades of the opposite.
I’m of the view that humans evolved to eat meat and that it provides the highest levels of bioavailable healthy protein, vitamins and minerals of any food type. For the avoidance of doubt, I eat meat, including seafood, as part of a nutrient-dense, real food diet with dairy and a range of seasonal vegetables.
My own views aside, I thought I’d provide an update from the academic literature on the safety and health effects of including meat in a diet. In this article, I’ll cover the following:
Evidence for the effects of dietary meat on human longevity
Evidence for the effects of dietary meat on human disease
Evidence for the effects of dietary meat on human longevity
For this section, I’ve drawn from a study by scientists in Australia and Europe [1]. They examined data from 175 regions around the world and compared total meat intake to population level life expectancy at birth and at 5 years for both sexes calculated for the period of 2010–2015. Total meat is defined as “flesh of animals used for food”, including beef and veal, buffalo, pig, mutton and lamb, goat, horse, chicken, goose, duck, turkey, rabbit, game, and offal.
To avoid confusion, the authors controlled for total calories consumed, monetary income, urbanization, and obesity.
They conclude that consumption of meat is associated with increased longevity:
“Statistically, the finding of this study unequivocally indicates that meat eating benefits life expectancy”
The authors suggest that:
“Meat contains high protein with all the essential amino acids, and is a good source of minerals (iron, phosphorus, selenium and zinc) and vitamins (B12, B6, K, choline, niacin, riboflavin). Simply put – a human animal consuming a body of another animal gets practically all constituent compounds of its own body”
Evidence for the effects of dietary meat on human disease
A common criticism of red meat (rarely defined) is that it “causes” heart disease. In actual fact, no causal link has ever been demonstrated, but many authors claim an association or “link” (a term that often blurs correlation and causation). It is fair to say that an association exists between eating red meat and the prevalence of heart disease. But correlation is not causation.
Consider an analogy - if someone told you there is an association between burning buildings and the presence of firemen, would you assume that the firemen caused the fire? Hopefully not…!
Let’s dig into the issue with the help of two recent publications [2,3], both of which provide decent introductions to the issues. The traditional view holds that when humans eat red meat, gut microbiota create a metabolite called TMA (I’ll spare you the long name). TMA itself is not inherently harmful, but the human body converts it into TMAO which some claim causes heart disease, despite there existing no evidence of that having ever happened.
I don’t like the earlier paper [2] because it assumes that red meat is harmful, rather than actually investigating this unproven claim, spends much space to promoting potential new pharmaceutical drug opportunities, and overuses “link” when describing associations.
The 2024 paper [3] is more balanced and useful. Its authors show that the real situation is much less straightforward and propose:
TMA and TMAO have distinct roles in human biology that are context-dependent
TMA is a gut microbiota signaling metabolite which in a high-fat diet:
Directly improves (calms?) the immune system
Improves metabolic balance by increasing insulin sensitivity
The role of TMAO appears to be highly context dependent with impacts that can be beneficial, detrimental or insignificant
What does “context” mean here? Individual human variation, sex, age, diet, time of year, geography, sunlight exposure? I can guarantee that the last one has never been properly investigated.
For me, this reinforces a key takeaway - I should not rule in or out any dietary component based solely on a poorly understood metabolic biomarker.
Summary
The evidence associating meat consumption with improved life expectancy supports my view that including meat in the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans represents a clear improvement.
This is not to say that everyone should eat meat. Many have individual health, religious or ethical reasons not to. However, a wholly plant-based diet is healthy only because of relatively recent (in an evolutionary timescale) technological advances. As the longevity study [1] notes in its discussion:
“Recently, massive agricultural production and advanced food manufacturing technologies have made it possible to replace the beneficial nutrients of meat with other agricultural industry products and/or synthetic chemicals. For example, proteins are easy to obtain by incorporating nuts and beans into diet. Vitamin B12 can be absorbed adequately from cheese, eggs, milk, and artificially fortified pills, and iron can be found in legumes, grains, nuts, and a range of vegetables. Relying on meat nutrient replacements and available food products, well-planned vegetarian diets, including vegan diets, are nutritionally adequate and are appropriate for various individuals during all stages of life, but it is only because their nutritional composition adequately imitates and replaces what is commonly provided by meat”
The emerging findings that challenge past claims that a single metabolite (TMAO) resulting from eating red meat is inherently harmful (causes heart disease) should not be surprising. The human body is a complex system of interactions where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and outcomes are impossible to predict from isolated components alone [4].
We live in interesting times…I think that is an opportunity, not a curse.
References
You W, Henneberg R, Saniotis A, Ge Y, Henneberg M. Total Meat Intake is Associated with Life Expectancy: A Cross-Sectional Data Analysis of 175 Contemporary Populations. Int J Gen Med. 2022 Feb 22;15:1833-1851. doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S333004. PMID: 35228814; PMCID: PMC8881926
Schugar RC, Shih DM, Warrier M, Helsley RN, Burrows A, Ferguson D, Brown AL, Gromovsky AD, Heine M, Chatterjee A, Li L, Li XS, Wang Z, Willard B, Meng Y, Kim H, Che N, Pan C, Lee RG, Crooke RM, Graham MJ, Morton RE, Langefeld CD, Das SK, Rudel LL, Zein N, McCullough AJ, Dasarathy S, Tang WHW, Erokwu BO, Flask CA, Laakso M, Civelek M, Naga Prasad SV, Heeren J, Lusis AJ, Hazen SL, Brown JM. The TMAO-Producing Enzyme Flavin-Containing Monooxygenase 3 Regulates Obesity and the Beiging of White Adipose Tissue. Cell Rep. 2017 Jun 20;19(12):2451-2461. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.05.077. Erratum in: Cell Rep. 2017 Jul 5;20(1):279. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.06.053. PMID: 28636934; PMCID: PMC5672822.
Chilloux, J., Brial, F., Everard, A. et al. Inhibition of IRAK4 by microbial trimethylamine blunts metabolic inflammation and ameliorates glycemic control. Nat Metab 7, 2531–2547 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-025-01413-8
Theise, N. (2023) Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being. New York: Spiegel and Grau