Background: Consumption of red and processed meat has been associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D), but the results remained inconsistent. One of the responsible factors is the risk of misreporting of the dietary intake, which calls for robust biomarkers to represent meat intake. Aims: The aim of the study is to mine potential biomarkers for meat intake by comparing self-reported intake of various meat groups with the plasma metabolome, and to validate the findings by replicating the study in independent cohorts. The secondary aim is to investigate the association between the biomarkers and the risk of developing T2D in the main cohort and two independent cohorts. Methods: A nested case-control study from a population-based prospective Västerbotten Intervention Program (VIP) that started in 1985 in Northern Sweden served as the discovery cohort. 421 participants (225 women and 196 men) who developed T2D in the median diagnosis period of 7 years and controls with matching age, sex, ethnic group, and time of baseline visits, were selected. Using untargeted metabolomics approach, we apply both multivariate and univariate analyses to unbiasedly select panels of biomarker candidates to reflect total meat, processed and unprocessed meat, and poultry intake. The findings will be then replicated in two independent cohorts: a clinical subcohort of Swedish Mammography Cohort in Uppsala (n=5032 women) and a subset of Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study in eastern Finland n = 239). Additionally, the associations between these metabolites and the risk of T2D and cardiometabolic outcomes will be also assessed.