Recently the CSIRO Healthy Eating
Cookbook has come under revisional criticism as many of the recipes include generous portions of redmeat or meat in general despite being regarded as less healthy in relation to the heart with fish widely considered healthier by the scientific community. This being due to the meat industries influence and role in sponsoring of the book/CSIRO . The CSIRO having been so stripped of funding by the LNP that they now depend on funds from commercial interests.
2 Likes
@paulcg3 You draw a long bow there.
The CSIRO (Total Wellbeing Diet) recommends “Meat & Alternatives – lean meats and chicken, fish, eggs, tofu, legumes and pulses. We recommend 150-200g red meat (beef or lamb) 3 times a week and 2 serves of fish as part of your Meat & Alternatives allowance.”
Husband ate beef every day, often twice a day, and thought he was short changed if the rump didn’t hang off both sides of the plate. If the meat industry was driving this, they’re doing a poor job. Our red meat consumption is now a fraction of what it was. Beef = half kg Vs >5kg before (for him). Now eat more eggs, fish, beans instead and increased fruit & veg. And a lot healthier for it.
The weight loss industry is very lucrative, but you can do the CSIRO TWD diet for 12 weeks - FULLY REFUNDABLE. No snags - I did it and got the refund. My criticism of the recipe books is they are too fancy for our tastes, but the CSIRO recommendation doesn’t rely on cooking their meals, just adapting their ratios and avoiding processed foods. The CSIRO recommendations have been in place for 30+ years, so doubt either Party had that much influence.
6 Likes
The improvements you get from a CSIRO cook book depend on how bad your diet is to begin with.This doesn’t have any bearing on whether they are biased by industry funding or whether they are recommending the healthiest diet possible.
If they were being purely scientific they’d recommend the Japanese diet - heavy on fish and greens- or the Mediterranean diet but no they are being moderate in keeping with Australian taste and economic forces ie. the meat industry.
For optimal health most scientists don’t recommend 3serves of red meat a week anymore.That is just not the current thinking at all.
2 Likes
If they were being purely scientific, they would not recommend a single particular diet, because every accredited and practicing dietician (the ones who studied nutrition science for years at university and continue to do so every year) knows that everyone is different and that the ‘Japanese’ or ‘Mediterranean’ diets aren’t a nutritional silver bullet.
The science is very clear that greater nutrition can be found through these simple tips: eat mostly whole foods, mostly plants, and not too much. If you can fit a couple of serves of meat into that simple template - go for it! The fear-mongering around the meat industry is archaic and heavily debunked. Eat your food and be merry. 
2 Likes
The Japanese and Mediterranean diets are good examples of how to eat healthily for a statistically proven longer life, no silver bullets or fads there. On the other hand the CSIRO total wellbeing diet is a 12 week weight loss plan which is unusually high in protein and low in carbs. It is narrowly based on research that only used meat for protein as opposed to nuts,legumes etc. and carried out on overweight women. Further it is innappropriately recommended (with some adjustments)as a life long eating plan!
The book was funded by the Australian meat , livestock and dairy industry so if there’s no conflict of interest there then we’ll just have to take their word for it.
The criticisms came from Rosemary Stanton nutritionist at NSW university amongst others and an editorial in the prestigious peer reviewed science journal Nature and many overseas scientists.
I very much doubt that health concerns around red meat have been debunked - (instead they’ve been nuanced to eating grass fed over grain and hormone fed cattle and over processed meat). Links between colorectal cancer and red meat for example are enough to warrant concern even if *some of us have already reduced our red meat consumption.
2 Likes
