Doctors in rich countries especially have long counseled against eating lots of red or processed meat – and not just because of the cancer danger but because of the heart risks from the saturated fat and sodium. The studies looked at more than a dozen types of cancer in populations with diverse diets over the past 20 years.
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IARC classified processed meat as “carcinogenic to humans” on its group one list along with tobacco and asbestos, for which there is “sufficient evidence” of cancer links.
“For an individual, the risk of developing colorectal cancer due to their consumption of processed meat remains small, but this risk increases with the amount of meat consumed”, said IARC’s Dr. Kurt Straif.
The report concluded that processed meat is carcinogenic, with every 50g increase in processed meat consumed daily increasing cancer risk by 18 percent.
An ounce and three-quarters is roughly equivalent to a hot dog or a few slices of bologna, though it depends on how thinly it is sliced.
“Processed meat refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavor or improve preservation”. They defined red meat as “all types of mammalian muscle meat, such as beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse and goat”. In fact comparing red meat to smoking is ridiculous.
Does this bad news for bacon spell a change in our eating habits here in the South?
Many don’t consider it a meal without meat, and the full English Breakfast wouldn’t be the same without bacon and sausage. It also said red meat probably contributes to the disease, too.
Q: What kind of meat are we talking about here?
Four years ago, Satterfield faced testicular cancer.
The agency made no specific dietary recommendations and said it did not have enough data to define how much processed meat is too unsafe.
But, popular as they are, are we eating too much of them? The more you learn about sourcing, the more astonishing it can be.
“You’re going to see more and more people enjoying an e-bacon on a Sunday morning”, a spokesperson said. “Hopefully, something like this will cause a shift”. Earlier this year it paid US$775 million (S$1.1 billion) to buy Applegate Farms, which sells organic deli meats, hot dogs and bacon, and doesn’t use antibiotics, hormones, artificial ingredients or chemical preservatives. We need to continue to work on knowing the importance of how food affects us physically.
World Health Organization says even social bacon users could be at risk. The American Cancer Society has long urged people to eat less red meat and processed meat.
In a press release, the association said, “Most scientists agree that it is unrealistic to isolate a single food as a cause of cancer from a complex dietary pattern further confounded by lifestyle and environmental factors”.
No, predicted Hopkins. “This won’t bother chefs”.
“It might be a good idea not to be an excessive consumer of meat, ” said Jonathan Schoenfeld, the co-author of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition article and an assistant professor in radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School “But the effects of eating meat may be minimal, if anything”.
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While USA rates of colon cancer have been declining, it is the No. 2 cancer for women worldwide and No. 3 for men, according to the WHO. However, what I would like to know is: who eats more than 50g of processed meat per day? For example, one group would be assigned to eat lots of meat, and another less, or none. “It’s time to have that discourse of us knowing about our food”, Hopkins said. He envisions that this report could be beneficial for continuing the food conversation yet worries that it could contribute to the general public’s growing confusion over food.
