Is beef heart healthy? The American Heart Association can’t make up its mind

Is beef a heart-healthy food? The American Heart Association (AHA) allows some beef products to show up in its heart-healthy tests, despite a growing body of research pointing to the harmful effects of red meat consumption.

Last year, the nonprofit Animal Outlook (AO) took on the 100-year-old organization to file a lawsuit alleging that the AHA allows companies to display check marks on certain meat products and promote them as “heart-healthy” for a fee. .

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how much Fees vary from a few hundred to several thousand dollars based on the applicant’s sales revenue. The Beef Checkoff Program helps retailers and meat processors get a discount on these fees.

And by certifying beef as heart-healthy, the AHA contradicts its statements about eating it. For example, in 2018, the AHA warned that consuming animal fat could increase one’s risk of death by 21 percent.

“Our lawsuit against the AHA highlights its hypocrisy: On the one hand, they have publicly taken the position that these meat products are not heart-healthy and should be avoided; On the other hand, they are hiding the fact that the beef industry is paying them to put the AHA heart-healthy logo on their products,” Cheryl Leahy, AO executive director, told VegNews.

The lawsuit also claims that the AHA misrepresents its Heart-Check certification program as using stricter criteria than the government’s to certify beef, when in fact, the AHA only adheres to the government’s minimum standards.

So, is beef heart-healthy or not?

From bottom round to sirloin steak, a variety of beef products carry an AHA heart-healthy check, including its most recently certified beef product: extra-lean ground beef. Given the AHA’s mixed messaging, is lean beef healthier?

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“When people talk about red meat and heart disease, they’re usually talking about saturated fat and cholesterol,” Noah Promsma, MS, RDN, a nutrition educator at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, told VegNews. “It’s easy to listen and mistakenly believe that an extra-lean hamburger would be a healthier option.”

“However, beef contains many other components that are harmful to heart health, including protein,” he says. “Because fat and animal protein are usually eaten together, we only have a few studies that look at animal protein alone.”

“These studies show that protein from animals can generate harmful free radicals that contribute to heart disease,” says Praamsma.

A growing body of research supports this conclusion, including a study published last year in the Medical Journal Arteriosclerosis, thrombosis and vascular biology. Here, researchers found a serving of red meat that is eaten and digested in the intestinal tract causes gut microbes to produce chemicals that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease by 22 percent.

“Red meat contains other dangerous compounds, such as L-carnitine, which gut bacteria turn into a compound called TMAO,” says Promsma. “Studies suggest that TMAO contributes to heart disease. Dietary iron, particularly heme iron in red meat, has also been linked to heart disease.”

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Pramsma also noted that cooking meat at high heat creates advanced glycation end products (AGEs), and eating these is linked to an increased risk of heart disease.

Conversely, research published in 2021 in the AHA’s own scientific journal found that a diet that focuses on nutrient-dense plant foods can help young adults have a healthier heart, reducing their risk of cardiovascular disease by 52 percent.

“When choosing what to eat, the healthiest decision would be to pick a minimally processed veggie burger or a plant-based entree,” Promsma says. “Use ingredients recognized to avoid animal protein, saturated fat, and heme iron, and instead load up on fiber, antioxidants, and healthy protein.

“Foods made with whole food ingredients like beans, whole grains, vegetables and spices can taste great and do great for your heart, too,” he says.

Is vegan meat heart-healthy?

This month, Beyond Meat received AHA heart-healthy certification for its Beyond Steak—a first for any plant-based meat.

To do this, Beyond Steak (which is made from plant ingredients like wheat gluten and fava bean protein) must meet AHA requirements such as being low in saturated and trans fat, cholesterol and sodium and containing no more than 10 percent. Daily value of essential nutrients.

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Can vegetarian meat be a heart-healthy choice?

In 2020, Stanford University published the results of its SWAP-MEAT study. Here researchers replaced animal meat with Beyond Meat products for eight weeks and reported that participants experienced improvements in LDL cholesterol levels and several cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as TMAO.

“Plant-based products that mimic the taste and texture of meat are still very new and we don’t have much research yet on their long-term health effects,” says Praamsma. “Notably, plant-based meats like Beyond Steak do not contain cholesterol and they avoid almost all the harmful compounds found in meat.”

“Something though [vegan meat] products contain significant amounts of saturated fat, they may still be healthier for your heart than beef,” he says.

And the AHA’s Beyond Stakes certification is a step in the right direction for other reasons, Leahy noted. “Beyond and other vegan products are exactly the kind of products that should carry the AHA heart-healthy logo, which matches [process] Separate them from animal meat products,” he says.

“The AHA should not put a barrier between people and vegetarians,” says Leahy. “The message to consumers should be one of truth, which is unequivocally clear: They can make a choice that is both healthy and compassionate when they choose vegan.”

Research continues to link meat consumption to increased cancer risk and is also currently working on a multi-year project with the American Cancer Society to advance research on the role of plant-based meats in cancer prevention.