NO MORE BUCKETS –
April 24, 2025 – Chicken has long been lauded as a healthy alternative to red and processed meats, which have been linked to diabetes, heart disease, and several cancers.
But a new study has found a clucking scary link between chicken consumption, overall mortality, and gastrointestinal cancer — and you don’t have to eat that much to experience negative effects. In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declared that red meat — such as beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse, and goat — is “probably carcinogenic to humans,” while poultry was left off the table as a risk factor. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans defines chicken as a “noble food” because it is high in protein and lower in fat than other animal meats. The DGA suggests a standard poultry portion of 100g and recommends eating it one to three times per week.
However, Italian researchers recently found that people who eat more than 300 grams of chicken per week, or just under four servings, are 27% more likely to die from any cause than those who eat less than 100 grams (a little over one serving).
