Evidence-Based Nutrition: Why Eating Meat, Eggs, and Full-Fat Dairy Isn’t the Health Hazard It's Made Out to Be

Today, dietary guidelines often recommend reducing consumption of animal-sourced foods, such as red and processed meats, eggs, and animal fats like those in full-fat dairy. Some vocal public health nutritionists, particularly those advocating vegetarian lifestyles, go further by systematically labeling animal proteins as fundamentally ‘less healthy’ than plant-based alternatives, to the point of equating red meat with unhealthy foods like sugar (as claimed, for instance, by the EAT-Lancet report). 

However, these claims lack scientific consensus. Amid growing criticism of dietary policies, several experts highlight concerns, especially for populations with elevated nutritional needs. They argue that these guidelines rely on incomplete data and flawed interpretations, and that policy interventions to limit animal-sourced foods may lead to nutrient deficiencies that pose greater risks than the chronic diseases they aim to prevent. To resolve this, dietary guidance must prioritize adequate nourishment, focussing on the benefits of nutrient-dense foods from both plant and animal origin.

Some (but certainly not all) observational studies suggest a modest association between certain animal-sourced foods and elevated health risks, though absolute risk increases remain trivial. These findings are contentious, plagued by confounding factors, heterogeneity, and biases. Intervention studies with varying intake levels of animal foods largely fail to confirm these associations, and clear explanatory mechanisms are lacking, with saturated fat’s role increasingly questioned.

Researchers acknowledge these limitations, cautioning against overinterpreting results. For example, the WHO/IARC panel on red meat and colorectal cancer highlighted chance, bias, and confounding, stopping short of confirming causation. Yet, some advocacy-driven studies and reports do make such unwarranted causal claims nonetheless, which are then uncritically adopted into policy. The German and Nordic nutritional recommendations are examples of how poor methodological practice is used at policy level, leading to problematic public health advice. Dissenting scientific perspectives critizing such policies are typically portrayed as industry-influenced, stifling evidence-based discussion.
 

Influential voices, such as the WCRF, WHO, EAT-Lancet Commission, and Global Burden of Diseases consortium, are alarmist about the risks associated with red and processed meats, for which they argue restriction. While these organizations position themselves as authoritative, their claims have faced criticism on methodological grounds. Regional inconsistencies are also notable, with cohorts in the USA often showing worse outcomes, suggesting cultural or dietary biases in the data. In contrast, the PURE study, based on a large and global dietary cohort, indicates that unprocessed red meat should not be a target for reduction, with higher intake levels correlating with better health outcomes.

The GRADE system, the gold standard for evaluating epidemiological evidence, concludes that there is only 'low' to 'very-low' certainty that reducing red and processed meat intake improves cancer mortality, cardiometabolic outcomes, or overall mortality. Consequently, it offers a recommendation for adults to maintain rather than restrict their current consumption levels, emphasizing the importance of individual decision-making based on absolute effect estimates. Vocal nutritionists with a strong anti-meat bias have tried to dismiss this criticism by arguing that GRADE is too severe, thereby stating that they are ready to accept substandard evidence for nutritional epidemiology.

The reporting of 'relative' risks (RR) associated with the intake of animal-sourced foods in relation to health outcomes leads to unsupported sensationalism. These values are often presented without mentioning the 'absolute' risk (AR), creating exaggerated interpretations among non-experts. Even dietary guidelines tend to overlook the trivial AR reductions that come with dietary changes. For instance, an 18% RR increase for colorectal cancer linked to high processed meat consumption sounds alarming, but its corresponding AR increase is only 1%. To put it differently, the likelihood of someone not developing colorectal cancer during a lifetime would only shift from 94% to 93%. Moreover, this virtual risk increase is based on low-certainty evidence only. 

A risk is the complex outcome of a specific hazard combined with exposure (intake dose, preparation method, dietary context, etc.) and vulnerability (individual predispositions). Harms should also be weighed against benefits (e.g., nutritional value). Despite red and processed meats being classified as (probable) carcinogenic hazards by WHO/IARC, risk assessment suggests that this may not translate into actual risks against reasonable dietary backgrounds. Criticisms have emerged against such IARC-type hazard classifications, highlighting issues with methodology, expert conflicts, and outdated approaches that can lead to unnecessary health concerns and adverse consequences.