Another study about how Red Meat is going to kill us

My take is that more than likely there is a correlation between eating a lot of red meat and processed meat and a poor diet in general in regards to the general populace. So is it the red meat, or is it that their diet is lacking in fruit and veg and just nutritionally lacking in general...and also likely lacking in regular physical activity.

I'm coming at this more from what I've observed in the real world (not MFP)...friend's, family, colleagues, etc.

Most of my fitness friends are not only into their fitness, but also into healthier living on the whole...most of my fitness friends tend towards fish and poultry and beef here and there...they eat a lot of vegetables and fruit and a lot of other whole foods and keep treats as treats.

Conversely, I have some friends that really aren't into fitness or health or anything like that...it's not anything they think about or are concerned with. Most of them rarely eat fish...occasionally chicken, but most of their animal protein consumption is burgers, hotdogs, sausages, bacon, etc. They also don't get much in the way of fruit or veg or other things like legumes or lentils or whole grains like oats, etc. Basically beef and potato folk (with the potato generally coming in the form of french fries).

I used to be that guy...I ate beef a couple of times per day most days or lunch meat, etc...I ate bratwurst a couple times per week...I was probably lucky to get a single serving...maybe two of vegetables per day. I rarely ever ate fruit, and my diet was rich in soda, chips, french fries, etc and my health suffered for it as per my blood work. I was also very physically inactive.

It seems most of the studies try to pin point something...like beef...but is it the beef or is it that a diet consisting of a lot of beef and processed meat goods is also more likely to be poor nutritionally speaking for other reasons (especially in 'murica), while someone eating a diet of fish and poultry is more likely to be simply more health conscious in general and eat a better all around diet and exercise regularly?

Meh, sadly these type of analysis are extremely difficult to validate, as it's not really possible to have controlled environments for the said data.

The source is questionnaires as well. Another meh. This is simply a statistical analysis with questionable results that the authors inferred from the said data with no validation possibility.

Red meat usually is consumed more in higher income housings & nations, so we can infer that money causes increased mortality?

Did the authors consider the use of organic red meat vs hormone pumped meat? They didn't even differentiate processed & unprocessed meat.

And another weird bit, somehow the authors interchange poultry and red meat as if its a multiplier in an equation, and infer results. Do they think red meat eaters, and poultry-only eaters have the exact same life-styles, and eating behaviors, therefore coming to a conclusion of interchanging the one aspect simply changed the subjects life-spans? How interesting. Sadly that was the only original finding of the research.

Just because some data correlates to one another, it doesn't mean that they have causality, this somehow seems like one of these: