How much meat and milk is optimal for health?

© 2017 selection and editorial matter, J. D’Silva and J. Webster; individual chapters, the contributors. Meat and dairy products (MDPs) have long been regarded as good for health (Fiddes, 1991) but this assumption is increasingly being called into question. It has come to be recognized that vegetarians are generally as healthy as non-vegetarians and sometimes healthier. This has led some to question whether MDPs are necessary for a healthy diet and even whether diets would be healthier if people ate less MDPs than they currently do. The debate about MDPs and health is particularly intense in industrialized countries, where people have diets that are relatively high in MDPs and where it has come to be realized that the production of MDPs - at least as generally practised - has detrimental effects on the environment (see chapters by Bernués, D’Silva, Hoekstra and Young in this book).