Shawn, you left out the most interesting finding in the paper: education was a stronger predictor of life expectancy, and when the researchers included education, meat was no longer a statistically significant predictor of life expectancy at birth (p=0.094). That rather changes your headline. This was an ecological study comparing meat availability and life expectancy across 175 countries. It didn’t follow individuals or establish that people who ate more meat lived longer. Meat availability correlated strongly with national wealth (r=0.758). Wealth also brings sanitation, vaccination, healthcare, maternal care, food security, and lower childhood mortality. All useful things if your objective is to stay alive. The researchers adjusted for some of these factors, but removing meat from their broader regression model reduced adjusted R² by only about 0.03. Rather less impressive than claiming meat explains half the variation in longevity. And their definition of carbohydrates? Cereals, starchy roots, and sugar lumped together. Apparently, whole grains and sugar are nutritionally interchangeable when constructing an argument against plant-based diets. They also measured national food supply, not individual consumption, and combined poultry, red meat, and processed meat, despite evidence that these foods have different associations with health outcomes. Meat availability was averaged over 2011–2013, while life expectancy was measured over 2010–2015. That’s hardly a lifetime of dietary follow-up. In countries struggling with malnutrition, greater access to nutrient-dense foods, including meat, can improve nutrition and childhood survival. But that doesn’t establish that a well-nourished American eating more steak will live longer. Meanwhile, prospective cohort studies following hundreds of thousands of individuals for decades have associated replacing red and processed meat with plant proteins with lower cardiovascular risk. Those studies have limitations, but at least they follow actual people rather than comparing national food supplies. I eat meat. It provides valuable nutrients. But recognizing its nutritional value doesn’t require pretending an ecological correlation establishes causation. What I find particularly entertaining is watching people dismiss prospective cohort studies as unreliable observational evidence, then celebrate an ecological study as definitive proof. Apparently observational evidence becomes convincing when it agrees with your dietary preferences.