Now that processed meats have been deemed carcinogenic by the World Health Agency...

[Whoknewitcouldbeso]

Can I ask if you will be allowing your kids to eat sausages, ham, burgers etc? They are also warming about red meat in general so I can no longer feel virtuous when I cook homemade lasagne or shepherds pie.

My son loves sausages, I tend to buy the 98% pork ones but again, now thinking that I'm hurting him by letting him have sausages at all.

What are other people giving their children for dinner? I feel like I'm royally fucking up nowadays although I did make fresh cod goujons in a tempura batter two nights ago and he thought they were great. I must get at least one brownie point for the fish!

I haven't let my DC eat ham, bacon, salami, pepperami, chorizo or sausages if we don't know what's in them for several years. Or smoked foods or food with 'smoke flavouring'. Most flavoured crisps are out. I know they'll eat these things unknowingly from time but at least they don't eat them in the home.

I don't brown food for longer than the minimum time either - even toast!

There are loads of good sources of protein that aren't all that widely known: quinoa, various other seeds such as hemp (it doesn't make you high ), different varieties of mushroom.

This isn't news at all, is it? The independent article mentions that this research/advice was first published in 2011.

Iirc, the study showed that people who ate substantial amounts of red/processed meat daily were at higher risk of cancer.

It makes sense to me to make sausages, bacon, ham etc an occasional thing. Lean red meat is good for you in moderation but you probably should be looking at eating it once or twice a week.

We eat red meat 1-2 days a week, chicken and fish each maybe once a fortnight (would be more often but it's expensive) and veggie the rest of the time, using pulses, lentils, eggs and a little cheese for protein rather than processed veggie meat substitutes. Seems like a sensible healthy balance to me.

It's not news.

Not only do plants have fewer carcinogens (as far as my understanding goes) but they contain salicylates which protect against bowel cancer. And a host of other protective chemicals such as carotenes/carotenoids, anthocyanins, resveratrol, flavonoids etc

'Paleo' diets are probably nothing like the diets that paleo people ate. Have you ever seen a modern cow that looks anything like the cows that lived before modern farming came along? The meat in paleo times would have been much leaner and very free range. I bet people ate mostly? a load of plants including leaves that the 'diet industries' haven't heard of now.

Also life expectancy was drastically shorter in paleo times and I assume they didn't keep detailed stats on incidence of different sorts of cancers.

I was a bit confused about mince? Does that fall into red meat or processed category? I buy steak mince.

And they had chronic chest problems due to the smoke they inhaled sitting round their fires (according to the curator of a stone-age site I visited). They often often couldn't lie down to go to sleep because their breathing was too laboured. I suppose they accidentally kippered themselves.

Steak mince isn't processed. Processed usually refers to preserved meat such as bacon, salami, chorizo, pancetta, and some sausages and burgers. Or that's my understanding....

It's not 'processed meats cause cancer'. It's 'processed meats increase your chance of getting colorectal cancer by 18%'. It all depends on what the risk is in the first place. If my risk of getting colorectal cancer is 0.5% and eating sausages makes it 0.6% (an increase of 20%) then I'm perfectly happy to keep eating sausages.

Mince is just beef - steak or otherwise- that has been chopped finely 'minced' by a machine.

I'd recommend that everyone gets into the habit of reading labels.

IIRC the latest stats on bowel cancer are that 1 in 18 Britons get it. It's presenting in younger patients though. And they tend to go undiagnosed for longer because they're younger.....

IIRC (disclaimer - I might not!) one 'expert' compared the risks involved in eating more than the recommended allowance of processed meat to smoking two cigarettes a day. I think that was in 2012.

Probably if you eat a lot of processed meat but keep your digestive tract and immune system in good health by eating loads of fibre and fruit, veg and leaves and minimal refined sugar and 'artificial' additives the risk is significantly decreased. Moderation....

There's also thought to be an increased risk of stomach and pancreatic cancer from eating processed meat according to Cancer Research UK.

TBH I wouldn't give credence to anything which comes out of the WHO. They are bunch of self- serving ignorant individuals who don't understand statistics and who follow their own agenda. Long past their sell-by date and not fit for purpose.

Cancer Research also recommend minimal consumption of processed meat.....

god, I just carry on as I was, moderation in everything.

Use Quorn or similar, problem solved. If anyone thinks eatig pork is OK look at the Viva film of Red Tractor approved farm that sells to Morrissons - farrowing crates, piglets in battery cages, disgusting.

clearly things like bacon, sausages and processed meats are not good for you.
my rule of thumb is:- if it is processed and tastes delicious and moreish, its probably bad for you.
still - i am a bit surprised that the WHO came right out and said these foods are carcinogenic. i don't doubt they are correct though.
this is VERY bad news for the meat processing industry. jobs will be lost there, for sure.

Next thing you know, Jamie Oliver will be out wagging his fat tongue to get a tax on it legislated.

'this is VERY bad news for the meat processing industry. jobs will be lost there, for sure.'

Are people really that sheep-like? FFS, they come out every few days and tell you everything gives you cancer.

There's no such thing as 'bad for you' food. It's not heroin or crack cocaine. All in moderation and use common sense.

Quorn is fucking minging, no matter how much mo farah tries to convince me otherwise.

Are people really that sheep-like? FFS, they come out every few days and tell you everything gives you cancer.

some people are.
i know someone who works in the meat processing industry. it is very unstable. there was a pork scare 2 summers ago and the well established company she works at almost closed over this.

also - remember the foot and mouth outbreak in early 2000s?

There is this on the cancer research page:

processed meats [15]. The Government advises that people who eat more than 90g (cooked weight) of red and processed meat a day should cut down to 70g or less [41].

So what does that equate to roughly? A ham sandwich? A spag bol?

Some perspective on this would help! And whilst I've seen figures saying it increases the chances of certain types of cancer by x percent, they aren't alongside what the overall likelihood is so it is difficult to ascertain how much of an issue this is in reality.

I notice that processed meat is listed alongside alcohol as a carcinogenic, doesn't seem to have impacted many peoples alcohol consumption though!

It's not 'processed meats cause cancer'. It's 'processed meats increase your chance of getting colorectal cancer by 18%'. It all depends on what the risk is in the first place. If my risk of getting colorectal cancer is 0.5% and eating sausages makes it 0.6% (an increase of 20%) then I'm perfectly happy to keep eating sausages

Quite. I have a few grams of processed meat about once a week and don't eat much meat anyway. I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I watch what I drink, bloody hell, don't take my bacon/chorizo away!