Eating meat is good for your health

It is my pleasure to point out the innumerable arguments and rebuttals that my opponent completely dropped:(1) Con's strongest point was that increased mutagen activity from meat causes cancer. He entirely refused to defend this point once I made it clear that microwave preparation of meat (and/or cooking at lower degrees) almost eliminates mutagen activity. (2) Red meat contains powerful anti-cancer elements. This remained unchallenged throughout the debate. (3) Well-prepared meat is entirely safe to consume. Microwaving before cooking in itself is enough to deter any cancer-risk increasing activities. Con had no counter to this. (4) Ill-prepared vegetables can pose far greater health risks than ill-prepared meat. This means that the counterpart of meat, i.e., vegetables, are no better than meat per se. It's all about preparation and choice of type. Con ignored this point, despite being highly destructive to his entire argument. (5) Con provided no response to my argument that vegetarians tend to be healthier than meat-eaters because of their lifestyles, not beause they refrain from eating meat. I provided a well-researched study pointing this fact out. Con seems shocked enough to dedicate no characters for a response to this. (6) There was no response to my argument that very precise research, comparing vegetarians to meat-eaters who live approximately same lifestyles, showed that these people generally have same health outcomes - This was heavily ignored. I guess Con sticks to nonsensical studies.Counterarguments1. Studies are incompleteCon only provided a single study that attempted to compare vegetarians and non-vegetarians in terms of lifestyle. Yet, the study I cited that showed no health differences between vegetarians and non-vegetarians who lived same lifestyles -- this was entirely ignored by my opponent. To paraphrase Con's response: "One study is not credible compared to many I cited!" This is rubbish. The vast majority of his studies are NOT considered credible by scientists whatsoever. Countless health experts and organizations recommend meat consumption, especially fish. Con's studies are summarized as follows: "Meat eaters tend to have higher risks of developing cancer. This was discovered by comparing meat eaters to vegetarians."No credible scientist takes this seriously, and virtually every, except one, of Con's studies are based on this kind of research. "Researchers have run a large case-control study in Japan, examining associations of meat, fish and fat intake with risk of colorectal cancer, paying particular attention to the subsite within the colorectum. The Fukuoka Colorectal Cancer Study - using a newly developed personal-computer software for registering semi quantitative food frequencies - found that intake of beef/pork, processed meat, total fat, saturated fat or n-6 PUFA showed no clear association with the overall or subsite-specific risk of colorectal cancer." [1] As I also said earlier, the fact that vegetarians in the West tend to have better health is due to their lifestyles, and there is irrefutable evidence for this.Con criticized my use of a Harvard study tor refute his argument that meat causes cancer, because "He used sources from the same institution!" Sure, I never attacked the source of the studies, so that's a completely nonsensical notion. Moreover, what my use of the Harvard study shows is that regardless of the researchers and the research being done by them, there are always different results. Thus, Con's argument is not enhanced by the recent Harvard study. In any case, this study has turned out to be erroneous and quite frankly, nonsensical. Contrary to what Con said, the Harvard study hardly took into account any other factors besides meat consumption."Several other critical variables showed correlation with death rates – lack of activity, low cholesterol, BMI, smoking, diabetes, calorie intake and alcohol intake. These have not been excluded to isolate meat consumption alone. The raw data actually shows deaths rates falling with increased meat consumption up to the third or fourth quintile – and this is before all the other variables have been allowed for. This would suggest that meat consumption has a protective effect while weight, alcohol, calorie intake, lack of exercise and so on are all taking their toll." [2]Why does Con choose dishonesty over credible studies? Because the latter is almost non-existent. Finally, Con accused me of not using proper studies, rather articles. This is entirely false, as every single of the sources I provided refer to external sources, such as medical agencies that conducted certain studies about meat.2. Meat is generally healthyI argued that meat has innumerable health benefits. Con refuted none of my arguments regarding this. For example, I argued that certain types of red meat have anti-cancer properties. His response was, "That's like adding selenium to cigarettes and saying they are healthy!" This is a strawman. I am not arguing for cigarettes, but meat. I proved that red meat contains essential nutritions, such as Vitamin B-12, which is almost only gained by animal food sources. In fact, a direct blow to vegetarianism is the fact that vegetarians tend to suffer more from cardiovascular disease in certain areas of the world. [3] Again, comparing same lifestyles, except for eating meat and being a vegetarian, almost always shows no health differences.Neither Con nor any of his studies mention the important differences between grass-fed meat and grain-fed meat. Modern research on this was done: "In virtually every nutritional category evaluated, grass-fed meat was far superior to grain-fed meat. The omega-3 fatty acid profile in grass-fed meat, for instance, was found to be similar to that of fatty fish, which is often recommended by health officials as a type of meat that promotes health. Grass-fed animals were also found to produce meat that is higher in conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a healthy fat that fights obesity; carotenoids, organic antioxidant pigments that protect cells from cancer-causing free radicals and promote healthy immunity and reproductive function; and vitamin E tocopherols, which protect against cardiovascular disease and cancer." [4]So, not only does well-fed meat contain more health benefits, but among these include risk reduction of cancer and cardiovascular disease. This is a blow-up to all of Con's arguments. And this is just red meat -- Fish includes a plethora of health benefits, including powerful anti-cancer properties. [5] [6]Con provided no response my argument that meat is healthy if prepared in a proper fashion. The mutagens he kept talking about were almost eliminated when red meat was either cooked at lower degrees, or put in a microwave oven prior to cooking. So, why should we believe his nonsensical claim that meat causes cancer? It's like saying vegetables cause severe illness. They often do, but only when prepared wrongly. This is not a good argument against vegetable consumption. Neither is it against meat consumption. Lastly, a mixture of meat and other foods (vegetables, fruits, seeds, etc.) produces the best outcomes. [7]ConclusionI expected Con to bring some valuable studies to prove any of his extreme claims. He hasn't done so. On the other hand, I've given irrefutable evidence that meat is extremely healthy, and only shows signs of being bad if cooked in very wrong ways. And, vegetarians are not healthier because they don't eat meat. [1] http://www.medicalnewstoday.com...[2] http://www.zoeharcombe.com...[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...[4] http://www.naturalnews.com...[5] http://intelegen.com...[6] http://www.reuters.com...[7] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...