You do not have to give up meat

To eat or not to eat, this is the question...

In fact, you should give up meat in order to prevent many diseases, including cancer. You should also give up meat to save money. But is it achievable? Is it realistic to expect that Americans will stop eating meat?
 
Let us face it, we are talking about a nation obsessed with meat, where a quick Amazon.com search for the highest ranking garden accessory products (patio, lawn, garden category) yields several barbecue items (e.g., meat thermometers, barbecue gloves, etc.), instead of shovels, hoses, or garden lights.
 
Realistic goals bring real results. Instead of trying to remove the meat from the American diet, we should try to change the way Americans eat meat.
 
We all should eat meat the way our thrifty great-grandparents used to. They needed to "stretch" each pound of meat into many, many servings. They achieved this by adding tons of vegetables and sauces to every pound of meat. Although today many can afford to skip these “additions” to meat, the new meat-dominated plate can kill. So, why not compromise and eat less meat, rather than eating only meat or trying (unsuccessfully) to give up meat?
 
Try these approaches:

• Make meat soups. This is the ultimate meat-"stretching" approach that is also good for your health and pocket. Try beef barley soup, chicken soup, or this meatball soup recipe.

• Cook meat stews. Try this beef stew with half the meat (one, instead of two pounds).

• Increase the volume of your ground meat by adding bread crumbs, minced onion, cooked lentils and rice, etc.

• Finally, if you fail to use the methods above, and you are planning on cooking huge slabs of meat and roasting whole chickens, then make sure that you prepare your favorite veggies (roasted, boiled, raw, marinated, etc.) exceeding the amount of meat by at least 2-fold.

Remember that one should eat less than 18 ounces of red meat a week. This amounts to three weekly meals of six ounces meat each. Decrease the serving size further to 3 ounces, and you can enjoy red meat six times a week. How much meat is this? Three ounces of meat look like the size of a deck of cards.

With this compromise settled, I hope that you will accept easier the news that you do need to stop consuming all processed meats (e.g., bacon, salami, hot dogs, ham, sausages, jerky, etc.). They are simply not good for you. 

In brief:

1. The "culprits" contributing to cancer can be ranked from high-risk to low-risk in the following manner:
 
processed meat > red meat > other meat (some claim that the endotoxins in any meat contribute to cancer development and other diseases through inflammation).

2. You should stop the consumption of processed meats or have them only two to three times a year (on holidays).

3. You should limit the consumption of red meat to 18 ounces a week.

4. You should be aware that too much of any other meat (turkey, chicken) may also have potential hazards (e.g., endotoxins, released from the dead bacteria in any meat).

5. To lower your meat consumption, cook meat with plenty of vegetables and sauces (e.g., soups, stews).