The American Cancer Society studied 900 randomly selected US adults who had completed a 68-item semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. The following results come from a comparison between the 226 persons with the highest red meat consumption and the 226 with the lowest red meat consumption. Legume consumption by women did not differ with high or low meat consumption.
Odds ratios are a way of examining the likelihood of an event or behavior.
Very low ratios suggest that the behavior is very unlikely to occur. This research showed that eating large quantities of meat left little room in the diet for plant foods. Fruit, grain and legume consumption were inversely associated with meat consumption. Because breastmilk and formula contain relatively modest amounts of iron and zinc, infants often need additional sources of these minerals after the first few months of life. A study reported at Experimental Biology 98 in late April found that early introduction of solid foods did not improve nutritional status at 12 months.