So, What Meat is Red Meat?

Ever wonder which meat is red meat?
You probably know that beef is red meat,
but how about the meat from animals other than cows. How about the meat from pigs, for instance?
Is that red meat, too? And how about meat from sheep and goats.

There is lots of confusion about red meat.

Pork producers encourage this confusion by calling pork the “other white meat.”
Does that mean pork is not red meat?
And how about the dark meat from chickens or turkeys?
That meat can look pink before cooking so is it more red meat than white meat?

Well, here is a simple way to tell if what’s on your plate is red meat:
just count the legs of the animal from which it came. If the animal had four legs then the meat was almost certainly red meat.

So, you can use this simple rule to know that any meat from a cow, pig sheep or goat is red meat.
You can also use the rule to know that meat from chickens, ducks and turkeys is not red meat because those animals have only two legs. And fish don’t have any legs, so no fish dish is red meat.

There are 52 billion pounds of red meat produced every year in the United States.
That is an average of 150 pounds for every man, woman and child in the country.

Each of those pounds of red meat is associated with at higher risk of colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, stroke, kidney disease and many other adverse health effects that you definitely would like to avoid. So, why not skip the red meat and move to more of a plant-based diet. Your health and the health of our planet will be better as a result of that simple change.