 Mainly, because of its high energy density and fat content, meat consumption has been considered a discernment of weight gain. Yeah, but we looked at nuts, which are dense in calories and fat, and they didn't appear to contribute to weight gain at all, so let's not presume. Meat consumption and prospective weight gain in participants of the EPIC panacea study. What is that? Hundreds of thousands of men and women across 10 countries with weight gain measured over a five-year period. What did they find? Total meat consumption was positively associated with weight gain in men and women in normal weight, overweight subjects, and in smokers and non-smokers. Conclusion? Our results suggest a decrease in meat consumption may improve weight management. And this was after adjusting for initial weight, physical activity, education level, smoking status, total energy intake. Wait a second. What? That's the kicker. The link between meat and weight gain remained even after controlling for calories. One would assume that, sure, meat is associated with weight gain, because it's so packed with calories, and so you just get more calories in your daily diet compared to those eating vegetarian and so more weight gain. But no, it's even more than that. This was after controlling for caloric intake, meaning if you have two people eating the same amount of calories, the person eating more meat may gain more weight. In fact, they even calculated how much more. An intake of 250 grams of meat a day, like a steak, would lead to an annual weight gain 422 grams higher than the weight gain experienced with the same calorie diet with lower meat intake. After five years, the weight gain would be about 5 pounds more. Same calories, yet 5 pounds more eating meat. And steak was nothing. The strongest relationship with annual weight change, weight gain, was observed for poultry. Let's say you start out normal weight and eat a hamburger every day. This is how much extra weight beyond what's already in the calories you'd put on every year. What if instead you had the same amount of calories of processed meat, say a ham sandwich with three deli slices of ham on it? You'd gain this much extra, whereas just a half of a chicken breast puts you up to here. So the poultry effect was attenuated, evidently, if you removed people who were previously sick or who lied about their diet. In conclusion, our results indicate that meat intake is positively associated with weight gain, and this association persisted after adjustment for total energy intake and underlying dietary patterns. Our results are therefore in favor of the public health recommendation to decrease meat consumption for health improvement.