Veganish: How eating a certain amount of meat can still lower cholesterol

A mostly plant-based diet with 20 per cent animal products could be key to better health.

Listen only to Bear Grylls and you might think the world is composed of only two possible diets: piles of plants or pounds of meat.

The adventurer recently said he was embarrassed by his past vegan advocacy and now eats a diet high in grass-fed red meat with good quality, grass-fed liver every few days. He apparently now avoids vegetables as part of his “ancestral way of living”.

Few things can divide a family dinner quicker than the meat vs vegan debate. But there’s a growing consensus among experts that we’d all benefit from greater nuance in the discussion.

There’s no doubt that after meat was placed on the naughty step in recent years, evangelists and entrepreneurs have advocated plant-based alternatives.

However, there’s a growing fightback that seeks to differentiate high-quality meat from its processed counterpart, as well as an acknowledgement that it contains minerals and vitamins needed for human health.

When it comes to the question of whether or not meat is bad for human health, the science has never been clear-cut; one of the main difficulties being that nutritional epidemiology cannot in fact determine causation, only correlation.

A diet high in meat consumption has been linked to increased cholesterol. Photo / 123RF

With meat being blamed variously for raising the risk of heart disease, diabetes and pneumonia, in April this year scientists in a special issue of Animal Frontiers argued there was no good evidence to support red meat being dangerous below intakes of 75g per day. They argued that the link between red meat and disease vanished when part of a healthy diet, suggesting it was the rest of the diet that was fuelling health problems.

One of the main accusations about a diet high in meat consumption has been the link to high cholesterol. A recent systematic review looked at 30 studies of vegetarian and vegan diets and cholesterol, says Bridget Benelam of the British Nutrition Foundation.

“Specifically, the review looked at the impact of vegetarian and vegan diets on cholesterol and other factors in the blood that we know are associated with the risk of heart disease and stroke. The study found that these risks were reduced when people followed vegetarian or vegan diets compared with diets that included meat and fish.”

Again, correlation is not causation. People who eat more red meat may also have other overall dietary patterns, such as drinking more sugar-sweetened drinks and processed foods, which contribute to this health risk.

What we do know though, is that while many people are still eating more than the recommended maximum of 70g per day, that number is decreasing. Analysis published in the journal Lancet Planetary Health found that between 2008-9 and 2018-19, participants’ average meat consumption decreased from about 103g per person a day to 86g.

However, only about 30 per cent of adults are meeting their five a day. The recommended amount of dietary fibre is around 30g each day for general health benefits. However, recent figures suggest that in the UK, the average fibre intake for adults is 18g, 60 per cent of what it should be.

Some experts, including Benelam, believe that focusing on consuming a diet that is 80 per cent plant-based and 20 per cent animal-derived would be a way of redressing this balance. “Vegans make up a small proportion of the population and so getting people to shift towards including more plant proteins can have a wider impact,” says Benelam.

An 80:20 approach has been advocated for health by the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Photo / Babiche Martens.

Should we all go veganish?

Such a diet acknowledges that when it comes to vitamin B12, omega-3 fatty acids, and minerals such as iron and zinc, as well as important compounds for metabolism including taurine and creatine, meat is a more efficient way to derive them from food, compared with plant-based sources or supplements.

An 80:20 approach has been advocated for health by the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who says it has helped lower his cholesterol.

After a life of muscle-building, he remains committed to a protein-rich diet. While his go-to staples are eggs, salmon and chicken, he now has more veggie burgers with lentils and beans, and in doing so, he has cut down meat options to only 20 per cent of what he consumes.

It’s an approach that allows us to make room on our plates for more of our 30 plants a week, which can boost the diversity and health of your gut microbiota.

Prof Tim Spector, co-founder of Zoe, the personalised nutrition company, and author of Sunday Times best-selling Food for Life and Spoon Fed, says there is plenty of evidence that supports a plant-based diet being better for us.

Consuming 30 or more plants per week is associated with better health, research says.

Population-level epidemiological studies into the Mediterranean diet, which analyse the relationship between diet and health, all show that the more fruit and vegetables, pulses and wholegrains, and the more plants we eat generally, the better it is for us.

“My own research into this with the British and American Gut project and Zoe highlights that regardless of dietary preference for veganism, pescatarian, vegetarian or meat eating, consuming 30 or more plants per week is associated with better health,” says Prof Spector.

However this is not at the expense of some meat and dairy, he says: “Whilst it is possible to eat a vegan diet and have adequate levels of these nutrients, a small amount of meat in our diet can be hugely beneficial for making sure a person meets the optimal levels for these nutrients.”

His own diet includes meat only once a fortnight: “It’s not always steak, but fortnightly it’s some form of high-quality meat – so could be jamón ibérico or lamb cutlets. I eat eggs twice a week and cheese most days. I’m more or less 85 per cent plants and 15 per cent eggs, dairy, meat and fish.”

“If everyone in the UK ate 30 per cent less meat, that would liberate around 20 per cent of farmland to be put to better uses." Photo / Getty Images

Personalised approach

Prof Spector says dairy should preferably always be things such as kefir or high-quality cheese, to make the most of the nutritional benefits that fermentation offers.

A more personalised approach might mean that, for some people, red meat could be more beneficial, as shown in nutritional psychiatry trials looking at diet and mental health. For others, such as pregnant women, having more omega-3-rich fish could be really good for them.

It can be useful to use the imagery of a plate. If most of your plate is taken up by meat, it leaves less room for the plants, which we know are rich in all those gut-healthy things like polyphenols and fibre.

There are other benefits to a veganish diet. Jemima Lewis, co-author of Ravenous with her husband Henry Dimbleby, took up an 80:20 approach for environmental rather than health reasons.

“If everyone in the UK ate 30 per cent less meat, that would liberate around 20 per cent of farmland to be put to better uses,” she says. “Not just rewilding, but also farming in a gentler, more old-fashioned way – using low-density livestock to help cultivate the land in such a way that it can sustain both humans and wildlife.”

For pregnant women, eating more omega-3-rich fish could be highly beneficial. Photo / Getty Images

However, it’s also been a timely shift in diet for Lewis, who was recently diagnosed with high cholesterol. “I’ve had to cut down on red meat and animal fats, and doing it as a family is much less gloomy. I don’t know yet whether it has worked because I’m still waiting for the follow-up blood tests.”

One University of Toronto study found that people eating a plant-based diet rich in special cholesterol-lowering foods lowered their LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol by nearly 30 per cent in just four weeks. These foods include oats, beans, barley and others high in soluble fibre; soy protein, nuts, wheatgerm, wheat bran, almonds, Brussels sprouts and other foods containing substances called phytosterols.

The quality as well as quantity of the meat is what’s important says medical scientist and public health nutritionist Dr Federica Amati, who is a scientific adviser for De-liver-ance.

“It’s one of the most nutrient-rich foods we eat. If it’s been pasture fed, a steak can be a high omega food. It’s all about quality, but if the majority of your meat consumption comes from salami, bacon, sausage meat and ham, that’s not good quality animal fat.”

Diets high in animal-derived fat such as processed meats and butter overwhelm the liver, which eventually starts to store it as fatty liver deposits.

“I know there are a lot of paleo [followers] and carnivores that strongly believe you can eat steak all day and be fine, but we know from many decades of epidemiological data that the higher the fat content of your diet [the more of] a negative effect on longevity, cancer and heart attacks,” says Dr Amati.

Still, she believes in not demonising any one type of food. “Whatever you have more of on your plate is diminishing space for other food groups. It’s about making sure you have room on your plate for a diversity of different foods. Protein is filling, so if you eat a big piece of steak, you’re unlikely to have room for other food groups.”

“It’s not actually a faddy new way of eating at all. On the contrary – I think of it as going back to how our near-ancestors ate". Photo / Getty Images

A guiding principle

Saima Duhare, 46, started eating a veganish diet three years ago. She cut out white meat entirely, and now only consumes red meat twice a month, alongside a diet rich in legumes and vegetables, barley, dried fruits and grains. She also eats some dairy and fish.

“By cutting out meat, it has helped with lowering my cholesterol and generally feeling lighter. My metabolism doesn’t feel sluggish. I notice when I eat more veggies, grains and legumes I feel better.”

Duhare owns a small meal-kit business, and it was the number of meat meals she was packing on a weekly basis that struck her so much she began researching whether it was normal to consume meat five to seven days a week: “Especially from an Islamic point of view, I went on a journey of Islamic food and way of eating.”

Lewis has also looked to the past, although more recent, than Duhare as a source of inspiration.

Fermented dairy products such as kefir can aid gut health. Photo / Getty Images

“It’s not actually a faddy new way of eating at all. On the contrary – I think of it as going back to how our near-ancestors ate,” she says.

“Previous generations ate meat sparingly, because it was expensive. My mum – raised during rationing – learnt from her mother how to shop and cook like this. She would buy a chicken or joint of meat for the Sunday roast, and then make the leftovers last for days, in stews, pies, pilaffs, stocks and soups. Always massively bulked out with vegetables or pulses.

“But she also made a lot of straightforward vegan or vegetarian food, for economic rather than ideological reasons. Puy lentils with garlic and lemon zest, or courgette and feta pies.”

Courgette and feta pie is a good vegetarian meal that is economical as well. Photo / Getty Images

Striving for 80:20 might end up looking more like 60:40. It’s certainly not another ideology to get hung up on, but rather a guiding principle.

Lewis is not a fan of purism: “I think it often stops us making any changes, for fear of doing it wrong. So my advice to meat-eaters would be not to think of it as giving up meat. It’s about going back to the way our parents and grandparents ate meat: resourcefully, respectfully and cleverly. And at the same time, learning to love vegetables and pulses, as delicious things in their own right.”