Although experts have been linking red meat to physical health risks since, well the dawn of time, now it seems they have changed their tune quite a bit. Yes, it appears that people who eat red meat on a weekly basis are a lot happier that those who don’t.
The team of Australian experts made the link between red meat and lower risk of depression after a thorough study of 1000 Australian women.
Red Meat To The Rescue!
The experiment was led by professor Felice Jacka of Deakin University, Victoria, and she had this to say:
“We had originally thought that red meat might not be good for mental health but it turns out that it actually may be quite important. When we looked at women consuming less than the recommended amount of red meat in our study, we found that they were twice as likely to have a diagnosed depressive or anxiety disorder as those consuming the recommended amount.”
“Even when we took into account the overall healthiness of the women’s diets, as well as other factors such as their socioeconomic status, physical activity levels, smoking, weight and age, the relationship between low red meat intake and mental health remained.”
Now, you are probably asking: But were there any vegetarians in the study group? And the answer is – Yes. Vegetarian women have also been taken into consideration and when their results were deducted from the overall study, the numbers remained consistent.
“Interestingly, there was no relationship between other forms of protein, such as chicken, pork, fish or plant-based proteins, and mental health,” said Jacka.
“Vegetarianism was not the explanation either. Only nineteen women in the study were vegetarians, and the results were the same when they were excluded from the study analyses.”
So, there you go boys and girls – delicious red meat is actually good for our overall mental health. Who knew… However, eating too much red meat is just as bad as not eating enough of it. The recommended dose is 65 -100g of lean, red meat 3 to 4 times a week.
