2022
Note: For the most actual and detailed information, visit Good Food Institute:

For the World

 
 
 
 

Health

obesity

Many health risks associated with meat consumption are a result of the catastrophic practices carried out in factory farming (or to be more correct: intensive farming). These risks include salmonella as well as the bovine epidemic BSE, bird flu and antibiotic resistance. Resistance to antibiotics occurs when, through their over use in farming, bacteria are able to adapt and become immune to the effect of the antibiotics. Antibiotics are used routinely and in massive amounts in factory farmed animals. Many experts see an acute risk to human health through this over use.
For people working in or living near to livestock farms there exist other, more direct risks to their health, such as particulate matter emissions.

The consumption of meat its self is associated with over one hundred different human diseases. Among them are the two leading causes of death in the western world: heart disease and cancer (primarily cancer of the colon). Scientists are increasingly making the connection between consumption of animal products and diseases such as diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and allergies.
Apart from this, consumption of animal products can not only harm the well being of the individual, but also the economy.

Animal-free foods avoid many of these risks and in addition offer many health advantages. Cultured meat is still a dream for the future, but it is anticipated that it would also have many health advantages over animal derived foodstuffs. This is because the nutrients in which the cultured meat grows can be combined to influence the end product. This means, for example, that it would be possible to replace saturated fats with unsaturated fats.

Both vegetarian meat and cultured meat would eliminate the risk of animal epidemics.

For a balanced information it should be noted that an overconsumption of soy isoflavones can potentially trigger a thyroid condition.