"Bacon & Sausages will kill you" WHO

[bigjohn9916]

All food is bad for you, here is the latest

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/bacon-sausages-big-cancer-threat-083910518.html#Jmzazcp

 

[phoenix]

It's not particularly new, just that the WHO has reviewed the recent evidence.
This is an article from a Cancer charity explaining and also defining processed meats.
ie a hamburger or sausage made from minced meat without further processing (preservatives, salting, smoking or curing) counts as red meat, so a rather lower risk, rather than processed. http://www.wcrf-uk.org/uk/preventin.../red-and-processed-meat-and-cancer-prevention

 

[Celeriac]

All food is bad for you, here is the latest

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/bacon-sausages-big-cancer-threat-083910518.html#Jmzazcp

I think the relevant part here, is where they mention the preservatives.

If you go into a supermarket and pick up a pack of cheap ham, it may be only 80% pork and have added water, salt, pork protein, sodium phosphate, sodium polyphosphate, sodium nitrate, dextrose and tapioca starch.

The ham I buy (from Lidl incidentally) is air-dried, produced in the same way in Italy since Roman times and the only additional ingredient is salt.

Cheapest pork sausages in Tesco contain only 43% pork with 8% pork fat, rusk(wheat) potato starch, vegetable protein (soya), guar gum, diphosphates (not specified which), sodium metabisulphate, E300, E307 and cochineal.

I can easily believe that the majority of people in the developed world, eating red meat, are eating burgers, sausages, ready meals and processed meats containing the cheapest meat, unspecified animal protein, additives, preservatives, fillers, colourants i.e. all kinds of junk.

You can't expect to get high quality sausages at 8 for £1.25 for example.

Looking at the cancer charity link, it says that people eating more red meat, may be eating fewer vegetables. Again, that may be true.

When husband and I wiped out bread, pasta, rice etc from the base of the food pyramid, we replaced it with vegetables. From March - September I recorded all food purchases and using the 'this is 1 of your 5 a day' blurbs on a supermarket website, I reckon that I'm getting more like 10 - 15

This news may give the anti-low carb camp more ammunition but whether shoppers get behind it depends on whether the government gets behind it.

Realistically, what are people going to eat more of, if on a budget ?

If you're eating ready meals, burgers, sausages and processed meats because they are cheap, you are likely to cut back on them and eat more carbs not veg, if you take any notice of the WHO advice at all.

It's possible to pick up 2 whole farmed fresh trout in Sainsbury's for 2.25 but so many people cannot cook or get squeamish around fish that fish probably won't get more popular. Besides which we get warned not to eat too much fish, because of mercury.

Sometimes it feels like this world is so polluted and industrialised that all our food is toxic.

 

[Nick Hills]

Typical scaremongering using percentages. 20% more likely to get bowel cancer. 20% of what?
If you use the figure from an absolute viewpoint i.e. you have a 5 in 100 chance of bowel cancer before these findings then a 20% increase means you have a 6 in 100 chance. No significant increase at all.
But 20% sounds scarier and justifies us doing the research and getting our grants of lots of money for nothing.

 

[Romeran]

Just on the subject of scaremongering, has anyone noticed that saying "overweight or obese" sounds much worse than "obese or overweight"? ! This sequence of words is quite deliberate. Anyway, being a little overweight in itself has never hurt anybody. It's quite different from being fat. British children have never been healthier, think rickets, TB, and the infectious diseases that used to carry off so many. There should be more celebrating of the good news.

 

[Celeriac]

In London, in places like Tower Hamlets, they are seeing a resurgence of TB and rickets, unfortunately.

 

[SunnyExpat]

There was a good comment in the article though.

"Betsy Booren, of the North American Meat Institute, said recently: “If they determine that red and processed meat causes cancer – and I think they will – that moniker will stick. It could take decades and billions of dollars to change that.” "

So, basically, let's not worry if it causes cancer, let's chuck some really big money at convincing people to still buy it anyway.
Prepare for lot's of 'big meat' sponsored research in the near future I guess.

Typical scaremongering using percentages. 20% more likely to get bowel cancer. 20% of what?
If you use the figure from an absolute viewpoint i.e. you have a 5 in 100 chance of bowel cancer before these findings then a 20% increase means you have a 6 in 100 chance. No significant increase at all.
But 20% sounds scarier and justifies us doing the research and getting our grants of lots of money for nothing.

You're assuming the risk of bowel cancer is new, and will create an increase from the 5 to 6 in this scenario.
It's not new, the 5 in 100 includes the population that is eating processed meat. So you have a 20% greater chance of being one of those 5.

 

[Indy51]

Classic Stephen Colbert takedown of Meatocalypse

 

[Pinkorchid]

Just on the subject of scaremongering, has anyone noticed that saying "overweight or obese" sounds much worse than "obese or overweight"? ! This sequence of words is quite deliberate. Anyway, being a little overweight in itself has never hurt anybody. It's quite different from being fat. British children have never been healthier, think rickets, TB, and the infectious diseases that used to carry off so many. There should be more celebrating of the good news.

It is documented that the majority of British children...and I was one of them... were very healthy during the WW2 war years and for a long time after than many children are today. Food was rationed no junk food no sweets but everyone had enough for a balanced diet... yes I know it was high in carbs and we filled up on bread and potatoes but it did not do us any harm.. and they had far more exercise than kids have today.TB and rickets had almost been eliminated and vaccination was done for small pox and diphtheria.. a killer in children.. and they had practically been wiped out here. Now days we have new illnesses that children are suffering from like asthma diabetes cancer and obesity and more and more develop these when once they were virtually unheard of in children so no I would not say British children are healthier than they have ever been

 

[Administrator]

I think the relevant part here, is where they mention the preservatives.

If you go into a supermarket and pick up a pack of cheap ham, it may be only 80% pork and have added water, salt, pork protein, sodium phosphate, sodium polyphosphate, sodium nitrate, dextrose and tapioca starch.

The ham I buy (from Lidl incidentally) is air-dried, produced in the same way in Italy since Roman times and the only additional ingredient is salt.

Cheapest pork sausages in Tesco contain only 43% pork with 8% pork fat, rusk(wheat) potato starch, vegetable protein (soya), guar gum, diphosphates (not specified which), sodium metabisulphate, E300, E307 and cochineal.

I can easily believe that the majority of people in the developed world, eating red meat, are eating burgers, sausages, ready meals and processed meats containing the cheapest meat, unspecified animal protein, additives, preservatives, fillers, colourants i.e. all kinds of junk.

You can't expect to get high quality sausages at 8 for £1.25 for example.

Looking at the cancer charity link, it says that people eating more red meat, may be eating fewer vegetables. Again, that may be true.

When husband and I wiped out bread, pasta, rice etc from the base of the food pyramid, we replaced it with vegetables. From March - September I recorded all food purchases and using the 'this is 1 of your 5 a day' blurbs on a supermarket website, I reckon that I'm getting more like 10 - 15

This news may give the anti-low carb camp more ammunition but whether shoppers get behind it depends on whether the government gets behind it.

Realistically, what are people going to eat more of, if on a budget ?

If you're eating ready meals, burgers, sausages and processed meats because they are cheap, you are likely to cut back on them and eat more carbs not veg, if you take any notice of the WHO advice at all.

It's possible to pick up 2 whole farmed fresh trout in Sainsbury's for 2.25 but so many people cannot cook or get squeamish around fish that fish probably won't get more popular. Besides which we get warned not to eat too much fish, because of mercury.

Sometimes it feels like this world is so polluted and industrialised that all our food is toxic.

The additions are no doubt contributing detrimentally.
And that's before we even mention soft drinks!

 

[Nick Hills]

There was a good comment in the article though.

"Betsy Booren, of the North American Meat Institute, said recently: “If they determine that red and processed meat causes cancer – and I think they will – that moniker will stick. It could take decades and billions of dollars to change that.” "

So, basically, let's not worry if it causes cancer, let's chuck some really big money at convincing people to still buy it anyway.
Prepare for lot's of 'big meat' sponsored research in the near future I guess.



You're assuming the risk of bowel cancer is new, and will create an increase from the 5 to 6 in this scenario.
It's not new, the 5 in 100 includes the population that is eating processed meat. So you have a 20% greater chance of being one of those 5.

No, I was just saying that percentages are used as scaremongering.
I know bowel cancer are not new.
You'd be hard pushed to find anyone who doesn't eat some sort of processed meat unless they were a smelly hippy.
Ignore the scaremongering, eat what you like in moderation.
The old adage "A little of what you like, does you good."
People have forgotten what "a little" means these days.

 

[SunnyExpat]

No, I was just saying that percentages are used as scaremongering.
I know bowel cancer are not new.
You'd be hard pushed to find anyone who doesn't eat some sort of processed meat unless they were a smelly hippy.
Ignore the scaremongering, eat what you like in moderation.
The old adage "A little of what you like, does you good."
People have forgotten what "a little" means these days.

Really?
You'll find a lot on here don't eat processed food, and many are vegetarian.
Guess that makes us all 'smelly hippies' then?

 

[Avocado Sevenfold]

You'd be hard pushed to find anyone who doesn't eat some sort of processed meat unless they were a smelly hippy.

Holy hell. Post of the week!

 

[Celeriac]

I eat Prosciutto aka Parma ham, thanks to a tip on another forum. As long as it has the gold crown logo, it's air-dried, made using same principles since Roman times, just pork and salt. No preservatives at all. It's the only ham I have found without preservatives, even the organic stuff has them. What's more, when cooked i.e. laid over chicken or used to line quiche tins instead of pastry it gets nice n crunchy. Usually around 1.99 a pack, too.