Perhaps, but there was subtle shifts. Post-industrialization and processed food era saw an increase in specific types of heart diseases and metabolic issues. Coronary artery disease is more common now than it was. So is "type II" diabetes. Whereas type I was the most common before processed foods.It was existent ...same as now. let him read old books from 100 yers ago, all the health problems were the same, heart failure and cancer were main diseases .
I don't really understand how any of this vindicates (or indicts) red meat though. People still got heart disease and cancer pre-industrialization. Probably much more than what is actually recorded, simply because "mysterious" deaths could be attributed to diseases they didn't know how to detect.
Not that any of that was on their minds. The most common causes of death before industrialization were infectious disease, not chronic issues. And they typically took people much earlier in life. In an odd and perhaps morbid way, heart disease and cancer is a sign of luxury. People are actually living long enough to get these diseases.
At any case, red meat consumption played very little in any scenario. Disease, health, nutrition, or whatever. I'm not sure where some folks get this idea that red meat was a common food source 100s of years ago, but it wasn't. Like, not at all. Anthropologists and historians debunk this myth readily easily without even thinking about it.
From the 14th to 18th centuries, people heavily relied on agriculture and crops. When these crops failed, famine and disease killed them. Whether it was Europe's wheat fields, America's maize, or Asia's rice, the vast majority of people survived on carbohydrates. Even in times of relative abundance the lower classes of people would consume a few ounces of meat at the most.
The plutocrats and royalty a little more. And they would be the fat ones more likely to die of heart attacks, lol. Not that it was the fault of animal protein, but just the abundance of caloric intake. Which culturally carried a different connotation back then. If you were fat it was a symbol of status. I digress.
Mankind's red meat consumption, at least in the developed world, was exceedingly slim by comparison to stapled crops like wheat, rye, millet, oat, maize, and rice.