A report from the US covering 30,000 audits suggests the effect on heart conditions and all cause mortality as a result of eating processed/unprocessed red meat, poultry or fish twice a week.
Poultry seems to be implicated in respect of heart issues but not all cause mortality, which is at odds with other research, however how it is cooked/consumed may have an impact in this respect.
Link to report below:-
Thanks for posting. I guess to be on the safe side we should just stick to fish!
In the link there's only access to a very brief summary, the full report is behind a paywall.
But even that brief summary says, "These findings suggest that, among US adults, higher intake of processed meat, unprocessed red meat, or poultry, but not fish, was significantly associated with a small increased risk of incident CVD?
From the limited information given "small"increased risk sounds right, it's actually very small. Less in fact than I was expecting.
Furthermore we don't know what other factors are at play here, for example are the people who eat processed meat more likely to smoke? Or are meat eaters more likely to be over weight than the fish eaters? And if so could it be these factors that are driving their heart disease rather than their actual diets?
The point I'm trying to make is that hard evidence for the health impact of one diet versus another is astonishingly elusive. Doesn't mean we shouldn't look, just that we need to apply a huge dollop of caution before making any conclusions.
I agree. But what I have done since my heart attack is completely avoid processed meat. I still eat a much reduced amount of red meat, but the full cooked breakfast is sadly a thing of the past. Apart from anything else a lot of the processed stuff is heavily loaded with fat and salt so best avoided
True, they shove all sorts of rubbish in processed foods.
Good answer Chappychap, how things are cooked and served can alter a good food into a bad food, if I bought healthy fish dipped it in batter and deep fried it I will have made a healthy food into an unhealthy food. I live at the side of a very busy road, congested at rush hour the fumes can't help anybody's heart problems. What life throws at you can make a difference to your well being, making you less resistant to health problems.
My husband is coeliac and an angler. He brings home fish (cleaned, thankfully!) and asks me to batter it...so far he's not complained about the batter being cornmeal (gluten free and actually a little on the sweetish side). Healthy-ish, I hope as he won't eat fish any other way.
Very interesting report SpiritoftheFloyd. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the reference. I noticed another Japanese study on the bottom left hand corner which looked at incorporating more green stuff into your diet. It also concluded that fish was a better bet and much better if you are trying to avoid cancer.
I bet it doesn't say anything about insulin resistance and sugar being to blame for a lot of heart disease. Unfortunately a lot of research is skewed in favour of funding.
Hi Bicyclist - absolutely right. For some unknown reason sugar nearly always gets a free pass be it sucrose or fructose.
And its strange how the source of funding seemingly influences 'scientific' investigations. John Ioannidis is a useful source of information about evidence based research.
Richard - also a bicyclist 
Pure, White and Deadly: How Sugar Is Killing Us and What We Can Do to Stop It amazon.co.uk/dp/0241965284/...
This book was written in the early 1970's by the British physiologist and nutritionist Prof John Yudkin.
Perhaps worth revisiting his ideas?
Hi Milkfairy,
And any video/book by Robert Lustig.
On a side note, I'm curious about our obsession with fruit. Go back a few years/centuries/millenia and fruit was a rare treat in autumn only - I recall bingeing on plum/apples/gooseberries for about a month and then getting an orange at Christmas. It occurs to me that fruit - which does contain fibre, small amounts of vitamins/minerals was only ever available as a seasonal crop. So why are we treating ourselves to a stack of fructose every day?
Just curious
Richard
Talking of seasonal fruit. I have just bought my Seville oranges to make marmalade.
Don't tell anybody about the sugar😊
Naughty, naughty By very yummy on toasted sourdough bread.
My current obsession is with homemade sauerkraut - but I have to say my pineapple and cabbage version is not something I will repeat - but I did eat the 1.5kg that I made - I refuse to waste food !!
Next up is cabbage/leek and apple, followed by cabbage and beetroot
Richard
I am glad to hear you are attending to your biome!
Our fridge smells a little - possible like my biome and the airing cupboard aka the fermenting room has a very interesting odour. It's fortunate, I think,that my long suffering wife has a poor sense of smell
lol. So have I. Eight jars of the stuff. Tastes great. I'll have almost none of it, being more of a cereal than toast for breakfast person, but my wife loves it and I enjoy making it.
Excellent!
My husband enjoys mine on his toast too.
I am a yoghurt and berry fan with the compulsory prunes thanks to the Diltiaziem😳
Hi lamina-128, You are right we only had fruit and veg in season. Nobody asks you if they can have you apple core when you have finished with it these days.
I quite agree Bicyclist, for the US obesity does not appear to be a problem - yet. The report summarises as follows: -
"The findings of this study appear to have critical public health implications given that dietary behaviors are modifiable and most people consume these 4 food types on a daily or weekly basis"
I feel that this country if far in front of the thinking of the US towards what is best for ones diet, probably because there is so much US money tied up with junk food, even the highly suspicious chlorinated chicken and over burdened red meat treated with estrogen hormones and we all know how beneficial fish is to ones health. With the greatest respects, these US medical reports can be set up by any company to reflect about anything since everyone appears to have to pay for any medical advice, including this report whose detailed findings are behind a "pay" firewall.
I would personally prefer to be lead by the NHS and the Government Health department for advice and guidance on all things medical, including the use of UK anchored search engines such as Bing and not Google - the largest gatherer of personal information in the World - my views entirely backed by research
Processed foods are not just microwave meals and ready meals.
A processed food is any food that has been altered in some way during preparation.
Food processing can be as basic as:
freezing
canning
baking
drying
Not all processed foods are unhealthy but some processed foods may contain high levels of salt, sugar and fat.
What counts as processed food?
Examples of common processed foods include:
breakfast cereals
cheese
tinned vegetables
bread
savoury snacks, such as crisps, sausage rolls, pies and pasties
meat products, such as bacon, sausage, ham, salami and paté
microwave meals or ready meals
cakes and biscuits
drinks, such as milk or soft drinks
Not all processed food is a bad choice. Some foods need processing to make them safe, such as milk, which needs to be pasteurised to remove harmful bacteria.
Other foods need processing to make them suitable for use, such as pressing seeds to make oil.
See full document at nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/w...
Ooh you've made me really hungry now
Yes but there's not much left you can eat.
Thanks for the link. It's good to have as much information as possible.
Thanks for the post, very enlightening.
Does the report take portion sizes in to the equation. As we all know US portion sizes are probably double the size of UK portions.
Yes they did. The researchers defined a serving of unprocessed red meat or poultry as a 4oz portion. For processed meat the serving was 2 slices of bacon, two small sausages or a hot dog
Weight loss and heart failure
📣 Midweek Social Check-in! 30/05
British Heart Foundation 
