5 Justifications for Increasing Your Meat Intake

Dietary guidelines frequently suggest consuming less meat and more fruits, vegetables, and complete grains.

This is particularly true for women who are targeted by salad dishes and detox smoothies. However, how true is this advice?

Are fruits, veggies, and whole grains the answer to weight loss and better health? 

In fact, a lot of anthropologists believe that because we began hunting and consuming primarily large game animals, the human brain expanded and our IQ increased dramatically.

In short, we became human because we started eating a lot of meat.

So why is meat so vilified in common modern dietary advice? 

Much of it has to do with outdated science on saturated fat and cholesterol, both of which are found abundantly in meat. 

This post may contain affiliate links, which helps keep this content free. Please read our disclosure for more info.

Why Were We Told Meat is Bad

Let us take a little history lesson to understand why saturated fat and cholesterol are often regarded as negative elements of meat.

Ancel Keys, an American physiologist interested in dietary effects on cardiovascular disease, pioneered much of this science.

His idea was simple: saturated fat elevates blood cholesterol levels, and elevated cholesterol levels lead to an increased risk of heart disease.

Keys further theorized that substituting saturated fat (found in meats) with polyunsaturated fats (primarily found in "vegetable", canola, and seed oils) would lower blood cholesterol levels and reduce heart disease mortality.

Around the same time that Keys was researching dietary saturated fat and cholesterol, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a major heart attack.

The nation was shocked and people were searching for answers – remember back in the 1950s heart attacks were far less common than today.

In the wake of this shocking event, the general populace was seeking plausible causes for President Eisenhower’s heart attack.

Ancel Keys was charming and confident enough to persuade a sizable segment of the medical profession that his theory about saturated fat and cholesterol was true.

Keys secured funding for a large observational study to research his hypothesis.

The study was mainly conducted in the Mediterranean region and is now known as the Seven Countries Study.  

Keys chose countries with a large percentage of centenarians (those who have lived for more than 100 years).

His logic was that if people are living to such ripe ages, these countries must eat well.


So, what did they observe?

They all seemed to be diets high in whole grains and vegetables, with a small amount of nuts, legumes, and seafood.

Keys, along the support of his wife, campaigned to popularize a Mediterranean Diet, pushing mostly those foods.

To this day the Mediterranean Diet is still largely promoted as the healthiest diet.

Is the Mediterranean Diet Really So Great?

Today, we are starting to learn that there were some major flaws in the observational Seven Countries Study.

Observational studies have known limitations:

• Selection Bias: some claim that Keys cherry-picked the data and countries that only supported his hypothesis.
• Correlation, Not Causation: Keys identified two things occurring at the same time, then assumed one as a cause of the other.
  • For example, although roosters crow at dawn, they do not cause the sun to rise. There is a link between occurrences, but concluding that the roosters cause the sun to rise is incorrect.
• Overlooked Recent Historical Factors:
  • It was conducted mostly in post-World War II Europe
  • Had a high number of individuals over 100 years of age (centenarians), whose pre-war diets included expensive items like meats, cheeses, and animal products.
  • Post-war poverty resulted in inexpensive, grain and starch-based diets low in saturated fat
  • Keys ascribed the longevity he saw to the post-war diet that the centenarians had only been consuming for a short period of time, rather than the pre-war diet they had eaten the most of their lives.

Are Saturated Fats and Cholesterol Really That Bad?

Newer research is also showing that saturated fats and cholesterol are not the evils that we’ve been taught to believe they are:

• Data recovered from an old Ancel Keys study showed that replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated did decrease cholesterol levels. What wasn’t published originally was that cholesterol went down, but deaths increased!
• Another study showed similar results that replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat did decrease blood cholesterol levels, but also increased deaths!
• Various other studies are showing that saturated fat does not cause heart disease.
• Back in 2015, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee removed dietary cholesterol as a “nutrient of concern”. This means it isn’t something we should worry about measuring or limiting in our foods.
  • For most people, dietary cholesterol has little effect on blood cholesterol levels. Our bodies produce approximately 85% of our cholesterol. In summary, consuming more cholesterol does not mean having higher cholesterol in the blood.

As you can now see, saturated fat and cholesterol are not valid reasons to avoid meat.

Now that we’ve made that very clear, let’s take a very real look at some possible reasons you should consume more meat.

5 Reasons to Add More Meat to Your Diet

1. Super Satiating

Meat, and specifically the protein in meat, satisfies hunger.

When a meal is more satiating there is less of an urge to snack or eat again soon.

This may translate into consuming less calories overall, which may lead to weight loss.

Carbs, fat, and protein are the three main macronutrients.


Out of the three, protein is the most filling, followed by fat and carbohydrates.

Consider this: when was the last time you overindulged in a steak or chicken breast?

In contrast, how recently have you eaten a whole bag of chips at one sitting? or an entire pint of gelato?

I know I’ve certainly done both of these things. 

An 8oz chicken breast has around 375 calories compared to an 8oz bag of potato chips at around 1280 calories.

We tend to be very satisfied at less calories, and for longer, when a meal contains a reasonable amount of animal proteins.

2. Power of Protein

Not only are proteins filling, but they are also your body's actual building blocks.

Sure, protein is necessary for gaining muscle mass, but it's also important for the development of bones and organs.


Proteins are also known as amino acids, and our bodies are only able to produce nine different kinds of necessary amino acids.

All nine of these essential amino acids are found in meat.

You certainly can get these 9 essential amino acids by combining plant-based protein sources, but it is difficult to do without over-consuming calories.

3. Nutritional Powerhouse

Meat is much more than just fat and protein. Meat is a great source of fat-soluble vitamins and crucial, necessary elements.

In actuality, meat has a higher nutrient content than many so-called plant-based superfoods, frequently in smaller serving sizes or with fewer calories.

Click here to see an image detailing the vitamins and minerals found in 100g (about 3.5 oz) of cooked beef.

Other Beneficial Compounds Found in Beef:

• Creatine – Creatine is most abundant in red meat. It is commonly taken as a supplement that is beneficial in the growth and maintenance of muscles.
• Glutathione – A super antioxidant, glutathione, is found to be abundant in most meats.
• Taurine – Taurine is another antioxidant that is important for heart and muscle function.
• Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) – CLA is a fat found in ruminant (grass-grazing) animals. In a proper diet it shows many health benefits.

4. Bioavailability

Another benefit of meat is that the types of minerals and vitamins found within are much easier for the body to actually absorb.

When it comes to transforming vitamins and minerals from plant-based sources into forms that our systems can use, they are usually incredibly poor at this process. I provide the example of a water bottle that has frozen.

In a technical sense, it contains water, but not in a useful form. It's not an effective technique to get water; you might be able to suck some off the ice or drink a little bit that has melted.


Plant-based diets frequently include similar vitamins and minerals. They exist, but not in a form that our bodies can easily access, and they frequently slip through our systems without being metabolized.

Animal products typically include nutrients in forms that our systems may easily absorb.


One of the best examples of this is heme iron. Heme iron is found in animal meat and is easily absorbed. While vegetarian forms of iron, like the type found in spinach, is much harder to absorb.

The World Health Organization estimates that almost 30% of women are anemic.

Groups that are at extra risk of iron-deficiency anemia are pregnant women and menstruating women. Heme iron, found in meat, could be very beneficial for these individuals.

5. Tastes Great

This is not a bacon-promoting comment, but a very real reason to eat meat.

There is less of a need to look for very appetizing processed foods that come in vibrant boxes and bags when healthy food tastes fantastic.


Meat is one of the least processed foods and research shows eating processed foods can result in weight gain.

There is a reason that they try to make plant-based meat substitutes taste like the real deal. Meat tastes great!

The Bottom Line

Now you see that there are actually some very excellent reasons to eat meat, and that there's no excuse to avoid it because it contains cholesterol and saturated fat.

Although it should be done properly, eating more meat may be good for your health.

Each of us are biologically unique and react to foods in different ways.

How effectively a person's body responds to meat might be influenced by their current digestive health, specific medical disorders, and genetic variations.

Always seek advice from a licensed healthcare provider, and keep in mind that food quality is very important.

Processed lunch meats and hotdogs are very different than grass-fed beef or organic pasture-raised chicken.

This post is simply to discuss the health impacts of eating meat.

If you are concerned with the ethical and environmental impacts of meat consumption I recommend checking out Sacred Cow or taking a look at this study showing positive impacts of regenerative farming (spoiler alert: they actually take carbon out of the atmosphere!)

If you’re looking for a structured plan to kickstart or accelerate your weight loss, the Custom Keto Diet could be exactly what you need.