A Retro Dinner: Beef Stroganoff

"Public health officials for years have urged Americans to limit consumption of red meat and processed meats because of concerns that these foods are linked to heart disease, cancer and other ills.  

 "But on Monday, in a remarkable turnabout, an international collaboration of researchers produced a series of analyses concluding that the advice, a bedrock of almost all dietary guidelines, is not backed by good scientific evidence." -- New York Times, Sept. 30, 2019

UPDATE, January 7, 2020: The publisher of the cited study, "Annals of Internal Medicine," has issued a correction stating that  the chief researcher had an undisclosed conflict of interest. Specifically, he accepted funding from the meat industry through an institute known as AgriLife. Quote from Marion Nestle, who had already pointed to the conflict of interest: “From the outside, it certainly looks like AgriLife is in the pocket of the meat industry and hired someone who has made a career out of undermining the dietary guidelines.” (source)

My original post continues:
It's been a while since I wrote a blog post about cooking a meal. Here's a quick description of a recent dinner, meat and all -- just in time for the startling revelation that red meat isn't nearly as risky for health we've been hearing for years. Unfortunately the evidence that meat may be bad for the health of the planet still stands.

Beef stroganoff is a dish I haven't made for a while, though I used to do it
often. In fact, I guess I must have done it many times because I seemed to
remember each step of the way, beginning with sautéed onions & mushrooms.

I decided to broil the meat to save time and limit the grease spatters on the stove.
The newly published research that eating red meat doesn't increase your
odds of sickness or death is nice to hear!

Using some home-made stock and seasonings, I made a brown gravy for the
mushrooms and onions, added the meat, and garnished with sour cream.
While it was quite tasty, it didn't quite make a photogenic presentation.

The side dish, roasted delicata squash with rosemary, was a bit more presentable.

I have to consider the following reason, stated in the article on this new research, why we should decrease beef consumption:

"Questions of personal health do not even begin to address the environmental degradation caused worldwide by intensive meat production. Meat and dairy are big contributors to climate change, with livestock production accounting for about 14.5 percent of the greenhouse gases that humans emit worldwide each year 

"Beef in particular tends to have an outsized climate footprint, partly because of all the land needed to raise cattle and grow feed, and partly because cows belch up methane, a potent greenhouse gas. 

"Researchers have estimated that, on average, beef has about five times the climate impact of chicken or pork, per gram of protein. Plant-based foods tend to have an even smaller impact."

Much additional material has been published about these studies since I wrote this last night, and much more is likely to be said. An editorial in the journal summarized the articles very clearly in scientific but non-technical terms:
https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2752329/meat-consumption-health-food-thought 

This blog post and photos © 2019 Mae E. Sander for mae's food blog