I am not a medical doctor and this is not medical advice but one nice thing about this swap is that you replace chicken with beef without really any nutrient deficiency concerns. K2 is the only thing commonly mentioned to be higher in chicken than beef, and
It is easily supplemented—I personally use this combined vitamin D & K2 supplement which is from a generally trustworthy (as far as I am aware) brand which nets out to $5c per day if you take the “default” serving amount of two[2] drops (totaling 1000IU D & 200mcg K2). It’s also easily eaten in far greater amounts if you consume Natto, which is vegan and hits a bunch of other things.
In terms of other things that people going plant-based commonly worry about like iron and b12, beef is actually higher than chicken.
This isn’t to count against anyone striving to eliminate all meat, of course, but in terms of recommendations we could—on my view—push harder on the PR for replacing chicken without having to worry about nutrient deficiencies.
One paper reports “MK-4” and the other “K2″ but note that MK-4 is one type of K2 and it seems here that it’s the only form present in either meat so that doesn’t explain the discrepancy.
I only take 1 drop; 1000iu is technically over the RDA for vitamin D (though safely below the generally accepted tolerable upper limit of 4000iu and you might have good reason to take more; I personally get some outside of this supplement as well) and K2 doesn’t technically have an RDA (the RDAs are based on K1) but I find 100mcg on top of the rest of my diet to intuitively be fine.
The supposed health benefits of replacing red with white meat are also questionable.
I have looked more into this, and now believe than chicken meat is healthier than red meat. So I updated the last 2 paragraphs of the post to:
I believe the major drawback of replacing chicken meat with beef or pork is that these may well be worse for your health.
You can always replace chicken meat with legumes to improve your health, save money, or if you are very concerned about GHG emissions (I am not). I have been following a plant-based diet for 5 years. However, know that replacing chicken meat with beef or pork significantly decreases suffering.
I strongly updated your comment now because it prompted me to look into the health aspect of the replacement, which I think is important, and was previously missing from the post.
I am not a medical doctor and this is not medical advice but one nice thing about this swap is that you replace chicken with beef without really any nutrient deficiency concerns. K2 is the only thing commonly mentioned to be higher in chicken than beef, and
The data don’t seem to show a huge difference
Determination of phylloquinone and menaquinones in food. Effect of food matrix on circulating vitamin K concentrations in Table 2 lists chicken leg at 8.5mcg/100g and leg at 8.9mcg/100g with “Beef” at 1.1mcg/100g but it’s unclear what cut of beef they’re referring to. Vitamin K Contents of Meat, Dairy, and Fast Food in the U.S. Diet gets 1.7, 7.2 and 5.1 mcg/100g for ground beef’s low, medium and high fat versions after broiling, much higher than the other number, but then gets 22.1mcg/100g for “chicken, barbecued”, so it’s at least triple the beef number in the same study. Not sure what explains the inconsistency or if there really is one.[1]
It is easily supplemented—I personally use this combined vitamin D & K2 supplement which is from a generally trustworthy (as far as I am aware) brand which nets out to $5c per day if you take the “default” serving amount of two[2] drops (totaling 1000IU D & 200mcg K2). It’s also easily eaten in far greater amounts if you consume Natto, which is vegan and hits a bunch of other things.
In terms of other things that people going plant-based commonly worry about like iron and b12, beef is actually higher than chicken.
This isn’t to count against anyone striving to eliminate all meat, of course, but in terms of recommendations we could—on my view—push harder on the PR for replacing chicken without having to worry about nutrient deficiencies.
One paper reports “MK-4” and the other “K2″ but note that MK-4 is one type of K2 and it seems here that it’s the only form present in either meat so that doesn’t explain the discrepancy.
I only take 1 drop; 1000iu is technically over the RDA for vitamin D (though safely below the generally accepted tolerable upper limit of 4000iu and you might have good reason to take more; I personally get some outside of this supplement as well) and K2 doesn’t technically have an RDA (the RDAs are based on K1) but I find 100mcg on top of the rest of my diet to intuitively be fine.
Thanks for the comment! I have added the following to the post, before the last paragraph:
@core_admiral , I follow these recommendations on supplementation.
I have looked more into this, and now believe than chicken meat is healthier than red meat. So I updated the last 2 paragraphs of the post to:
I strongly updated your comment now because it prompted me to look into the health aspect of the replacement, which I think is important, and was previously missing from the post.