More Collateral Damage

The ethical issue about meat-eating concerns the treatment of animals--especially in our new-fangled, intensely bizarre factory farms-- but it's amazing how much new evidence keeps coming in that, in harming animals, we also harm ourselves. Here's Jane Brody in today's New York Times--

There was a time when red meat was a luxury for ordinary Americans, or was at least something special: cooking a roast for Sunday dinner, ordering a steak at a restaurant. Not anymore. Meat consumption has more than doubled in the United States in the last 50 years.

Now a new study of more than 500,000 Americans has provided the best evidence yet that our affinity for red meat has exacted a hefty price on our health and limited our longevity.

The study found that, other things being equal, the men and women who consumed the most red and processed meat were likely to die sooner, especially from one of our two leading killers, heart disease and cancer, than people who consumed much smaller amounts of these foods.

More here.