Michael Pollan’s FOOD RULE # 23 is as follows: Treat meat as a flavoring or special occasion food.
I find it interesting and amusing that I randomly turned to that item in the book today when looking for a topic that sparked my interest. I’d recently realized that we have had meat on our menu a lot in the past few weeks and I also realized that it went with winter and cold weather and an apparent biological need for more insulation. (Not that I don’t have plenty of that already - too much, in fact!)
The American Heart Association recommends limiting meat intake to 5.5 ounces per day. (Psst - by the way - that pork chop in the photo? That’s a 5 ounce chop. It was plenty!!)
A prediction at the beginning of 2018 was that Americans would average - AVERAGE - eating 222.2 pounds of meat per year.
Let’s do the math, shall we?
222.2 pounds is 3,555.2 ounces.
3,555.2 ounces in a year works out to 9.740274 ounces of meat. Per day. ON AVERAGE.
The AHA recommendation comes out to 125.46875 pounds of meat per person. That is over 96 pounds under the expected average consumption.
In 2018, we were predicted to eat almost ONE HUNDRED POUNDS more meat than is recommended for a healthy diet.
I feel the need for a spinach salad. Anyone else? Without bacon. And for me to say “without bacon” is something of a big deal.
Let’s be honest. Anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy a steak. (Or bacon. Or chicken. Or chicken wrapped in bacon. You get the point.)
But whoa. I’m picturing 9.74 ounces of meat a day and that is a lot. That is too much. That is an overwhelming amount of meat. Yikes.
I found it intriguing that Pollan referenced Thomas Jefferson supposedly using meat as a “flavor principle,” so I went looking for more information. As referenced on the web site for Monticello, Jefferson could not be called a vegetarian as we think of vegetarians today, however, meat was not the primary focus of his meals.
Huh. That founding father guy was kinda smart.
Eat more veggies. There are many great and tasty ways to get protein in the diet that don’t include 9+ ounces of meat a day. But maybe, just maybe, sneak a small steak in every once in a while. (Unless, of course, you’re a vegan or vegetarian, in which case, maybe not so much. Why change what’s working?) I’ll definitely be revisiting my menus and trimming out some of the meat we’ve been eating!
Cheers! Here’s to your health!