Other than to say that I think that the news reporting on this story has been terrible, I really don’t know how to react to the report that the World Health Organization has deemed processed meats like bacon, sausage, and ham as carcinogenic:
Eating processed meats like hot dogs, sausages and bacon can cause colorectal cancer in humans, and red meat is also a likely cause of the disease, World Health Organization (WHO) experts said.
The review by WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), released on Monday, said additionally that there was some link between the consumption of red meat and pancreatic cancer and prostate cancer.
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.
Each 50-gram (1.8-ounce) portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 percent, the agency estimated.
Personally, I’m unconcerned. For one thing the risk still isn’t that high and for another I don’t eat that much processed meat. My ration is more like 10 grams a week than it is like 50 grams a day. 50 grams a day is a lot. I tend to use those things as seasoning rather than as entrees.
The report is completely unsurprising. It’s a meta-study. Findings along these lines have been coming out for decades.
I’m pretty out of touch with the American diet. How much processed meat do Americans eat on a daily basis? My impression is that the Germans eat a lot more wurst than Americans do.
If I heard the NPR story correctly, bacon et al. account for 34,000 deaths a year world-wide. Doesn’t sound all that grave…
It reminds me a bit of the articles that come around every so often about the dangers of hydrogen dioxide…
To place that in perspective there are about 3 million deaths a year caused by tobacco and 100,000 per year caused by asbestos.
Not a good week for this study in the Shaw household. I’m making stuffed bell peppers tonight w/ a pound of pork sausage, which will work out to about four ounces each. Tomorrow I’m making gumbo with a 14 ounce link of andouille sausage, which will probably work out to about 2 ounces each because there will be leftovers. Two nights ago, we got home from visiting my family and my wife fried a 14 ounce sausage link and steamed asparagus.
Three out of four nights the supper meal was some form of sausage, interrupted by vegetarian Monday, which makes it all right I hope.
So that strikes me as high sausage consumption this week, but assuming all of the sausage gets eaten at dinner or as leftovers in a week, plus the 4 ounces of sliced turkey from the deli counter that might be considered processed depending on the definition, the family of four will have consumed 48 ounces for the week, working out to an individual average of 1.7 ounces per day per person. I would guess that half of that would be more common for us.
Too much information.
I’ll just leave this here….
I really don’t pay much attention to these things. For most of my 69 years eggs, whole milk and butter were bad for you – now not so much. As it turns out margarine may be actually worse for you than butter. The research is poor. I had sausage and an egg for breakfast yesterday, today I had hot cereal. I will fix stuffed peppers tonight and fix stir fried chicken, vegetables and noodles tomorrow.
Always assume that diet studies are bad studies until proven otherwise.
Steve
What DO they want us to die of?