Swapping some red meat for fish or poultry
Grade ASmall benefitLifespanFreeLittle timeSome willpower
Eating two extra servings of processed or red meat each week raises the risk of death by roughly 3% compared to normal intake. Switching to the same amount of fish or poultry eliminates this increase. Within this section, this effect is relatively minor; it’s an easy swap worth making without much effort.
- Cost
- There’s no extra cost or time involved. You’re simply substituting one type of meat for another — no additional purchases needed. The real challenge is adjusting your taste preferences.
- Benefit
- This conclusion comes from pooling data across six U.S. studies involving nearly 30,000 participants. Consuming two extra servings of processed meat weekly raised mortality risk by about 3% (hazard ratio 1.03, 95% CI 1.02–1.05). The same increase applied to unprocessed red meat (1.03, 1.01–1.05). However, replacing those servings with poultry resulted in a ratio of 0.99 (0.97–1.02), and fish gave 0.99 (0.97–1.01); neither showed any statistically significant difference.
- Notes
- The impact of swapping just two servings per week is quite small; don’t expect a major lifespan extension from this change. When spending money on meat, choosing fish or poultry is the wiser option.
Sources · 1
- Zhong VW, Van Horn L, Greenland P, et al. (2020). Associations of Processed Meat, Unprocessed Red Meat, Poultry, or Fish Intake With Incident Cardiovascular Disease and All-Cause Mortality. JAMA Internal Medicine, 180(4), 503-512. doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.6969