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The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Soul Health & Wellness Centre, Oheneba Ntim Barimah is advising people who want to live longer to trade some of the red meat in their diet for fish, nuts, whole grains, and other healthier protein sources.

According to him, the risk of dying at an early age is as a result of high consumption of red meat which causes heart disease, cancer among others.

He reiterated that eating too much red meat, which is high in saturated fat and cholesterol, has long been seen as unhealthy, especially for the heart.

Speaking to The New Crusading GUIDE in an interview, he noted that on average, each additional serving of red meat one eats each day is associated with a 13% higher risk of dying during an early age.

“Processed red meat products appeared to be even more dangerous: Each additional daily serving was associated with a 20% higher risk of dying,” he said.

Based on these development,  Oheneba said substituting one daily serving of red meat with fish, poultry, nuts, legumes, whole grains, or low-fat dairy products would reduce the risk of dying in this stage of life by 7% to 19%.

“If everyone in the study had slashed their average red-meat intake to less than half a serving per day, the researchers say, 9% of deaths among men and 8% of deaths among women could have been prevented.”

He also observed that majority of people give wrong interpretations to the idea of consuming food with high protein.

According to him, the truth is that consuming excessive protein can actually be quite detrimental to peoples’ health, saying that eating more protein than your body needs can interfere with your health and fitness goals in a number of ways, including weight gain, extra body fat, stress on your kidneys, dehydration and leaching of important bone minerals.

It is a well-known fact that meat consumption has risen dramatically in Ghana, with many people failing to take note of the fact that a large amount of this excess meat is typically of poor quality, originating in confined animal feeding operations, where the animals are mistreated and fed an unnatural diet of genetically engineered grains instead of fresh grass.

“…. avoiding processed red meat altogether may be a good idea.” It's better to go with unprocessed products and plant-based foods."

Oheneba also explained that in countries like Ghana, where temperatures are high, charring red meat at such high temperatures can produce chemicals on the surface, and since processed meats contain certain additives that in high quantities are believed to promote cancer as well.

He expressed worry at the development and urged people to cut down on the consumption of meat if they cannot completely do away with them so as to build them more physically and avoid early deaths.