I've been wondering about that same thing for a long time now...especially when you consider that most people who eat a fast food burger also have french fries and, very often, a sugar laden soft drink to go with it! Add it all up and the calories from carbs far outweigh the ones from the red meat... yet it's the red meat that gets vilified.

Reminds me of a food survey that I did a year or so back that was supposed to provide me with feedback about how "healthy" my diet was and how I could alter it to be more healthy.

The survey was about 40 questions long, each question consisting of pictures of three "meal choices" and requiring you to pick which of the three meals best depicted what you would "generally" choose to eat. "None of the above" was not an option.

Some questions showed various breakfast options, some clearly lunch options, and others were dinner meals... and many of the images presented showed up in multiple questions, paired against different alternatives.

In every question set, one of the pictures displayed a fully plant-based meal, and included "healthy whole grains" and lots of colorful fruit or vegetables. If a dessert was shown, it was always fresh fruit or a small cookie.

The second image typically included protein from fish/chicken/eggs or cheese...with plenty of green vegetables or salads as side as well as either brown rice or a "healthy whole grain" bread of some sort. If dessert was shown, it was usually fruit-based, like apple pie or cobbler.

The third image invariably showed either a very typical fast food meal (hamburger and fries/ pizza/ batter fried chicken) or red meat. Breakfast and lunch images in this category showed bacon and sausage or processed meat sandwiches. Funny thing was that EVERY single one of these third images also included a large helping of a starchy white carb as a side (French fries, a huge baked potato, a big bowl of white pasta, potato or corn chips, grits) PLUS a serving of white bread. Many also included a sugary dessert such as pecan pie!

In other words, if one wanted to choose red meat, one had to choose a whole plethora of things that that I absolutely would not eat.

Since very few of the meals pictured actually showed a meal that did not include a bunch of carbage, out of curiosity, I decided to just make random choices. Result? I was told that I needed to eat less red meat and avoid eating so much fast food... that if I replaced some or all of my red meat meals with protein from fish or chicken or from vegetarian sources, I'd be a lot healthier and could expect to live longer! Not a word about staying away from the sugary desserts or the starchy carbs.

As I recall, the survey was sent to me by my health insurance company. Thankfully, it was a self-grading thing. If I'd been required to send it back in, I'd have selected mostly vegetarian meals with a few chicken and fish meals thrown in to make my answers reasonably believable.