Processed meats do cause cancer
Processed meats - such as bacon, sausages and ham - do cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Its report said 50g of processed meat a day - less than two slices of bacon - increased the chance of developing colorectal cancer, or bowel cancer, by 18%.
Maple-glazed bacon - 50g of processed meat a day can increase the chance of developing bowel cancer
Processed meat is meat that has been modified to either extend its shelf life or change the taste and the main methods are smoking, curing, or adding salt or preservatives. Thus simply putting beef through a mincer does not mean the resulting mince is "processed" unless it is modified further.
Sausage-making
It is the chemicals involved in the processing which could be increasing the risk of cancer. Processed meat includes bacon, sausages, hot dogs, salami, corned beef, beef jerky and ham as well as canned meat and meat-based sauces.
Tins of canned meat in a Hong Kong supermarket
Although processed meat may cause cancer, having a bacon sandwich is still not as bad as say, smoking or alcohol consumption. As a WHO doctor explained,
"For an individual, the risk of developing colorectal (bowel) cancer because of their consumption of processed meat remains small, but this risk increases with the amount of meat consumed.”
WHO Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland
Estimates suggest 34,000 deaths from cancer every year could be down to diets high in processed meat. That is in contrast to one million deaths from cancer caused by smoking and 600,000 attributed to alcohol each year.
A club sandwich with bacon and chicken - eating one, once in a while, will probably do you little harm
A professor at the Cancer Research UK concurred,
"This doesn't mean you need to stop eating any processed meat, but if you eat lots of it you may want to think about cutting down. Eating a bacon bap (sandwich) every once in a while isn't going to do much harm - having a healthy diet is all about moderation."
A healthy diet is all about moderation
(All images - credit: Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons licence)
