Breaking Down the Meat We Eat
IRP Research Explores the Health Effects of Specific Dietary Components
When Hippocrates said, “Let food by thy medicine and medicine thy food,” he was on to something. That’s why National Nutrition Month, celebrated every March, calls attention to the important link between health and diet. To commemorate Nutrition Month this year, we spoke with IRP senior investigator Rashmi Sinha, Ph.D., about her efforts to tease out not only which foods help or harm out bodies, but why they do so.
Determining the health effects of different foods has long been a holy grail in research, but with so many variables, our knowledge remains vague at best. Some foods — processed meats, certain fats, sugar — clearly have negative effects when eaten in large amounts, while others like green vegetables and legumes are helpful. Unfortunately, there are a lot of unknowns in between.