A few days back the World Health Organisation (WHO) was planning to label processed meats to be probable carcinogens that were as bad as cigarettes or tobacco.
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Researchers from the WHO’s worldwide Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC, in Lyon, have released an evaluation of more than 800 studies from several continents about meat and cancer.
IARC experts concluded each 50g portion of processed meat eaten daily increased the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. Ridiculous, replied the meat industry – IARC says the same thing about sunlight (a response put out before IARC had even made its formal announcement).
According to the IARC, processed meat refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation.
However, customers still queued in meat shops yesterday to buy sausages, bacon and steak as they discussed the headlines they had heard on the report.
“Meats processed [treated with chemicals, or smoked/cured, to allow longer storage] seem to have a stronger relationship with the development of cancer, and may deserve special attention to ascertain why”, said Dr. Arun Swaminath, director of the inflammatory bowel disease program at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Red meat was classified as probably carcinogenic in IARC’s group 2A list, joining glyphosate, the active ingredient in many weedkillers.
With that caveat, Mozzaffarian says his own general recommendations are “no more than one to two servings per month of processed meats, and no more than one to two servings per week of unprocessed meat”.
Smoking causes 19 per cent of all cancers while red meat causes 3 per cent of all cancers. Australia is reported to have the highest level of bowel cancer in the world, along with New Zealand. It can be said to have made us what we are.
Doctors aren’t staying to stop eating processed meat altogether.
The North American Meat Institute slammed the report, saying it “defies common sense” and that “Scientific evidence shows cancer is a complex disease not caused by single foods and that a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle choices are essential to good health”. The organization defines red meat as beef, pork, lamb, goat and horse.
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“Life causes cancer. We’re all gonna die anyway”, agreed Steven Sebbane, another customer. But there is still about 5 percent that is safe to eat, which are organic, grass-fed meats.
