I dont think it would follow that if high HDL tends to track with better cardiovascular outcomes the the HDL itself protective. And also on saturated (or any) fat you have a situation where again it is very hard to control varies. Saturated fat in the context of a modest low glycemic low sugar diet very likely has different effects than in the context of a high sugar high glycemic diet. And it is very hard to assemble the cohort to study this and to control the intake (diet studies very hard because people lie and also just dont know what they eat very well). But when you do cohort studies of athletes who manage their diets toward low sugar, lowish slow carbs and and highest protein and (relatively) higher fat you just dont see the predicted cardiovascular risk. And I'm not even sure what high meat means. I eat 4000 calories a day, so 5-8 ounces of meat ain't that high as a proportion of calories.