What is everyone going to do about sausages?

[Perfectomonday]

So sausages, bacon and other processed meats are now proven to definitely cause cancer, appearing in the top group of causes on the cancer research website.

I tried having a serious conversation with H about altering our eating habits since this has been in the news, but he laughs and says its nonsense.

It's not though is it? I've had a few other blank faces on mentioning it to other people and I'm guessing reactions were similar when it was first discovered that smoking causes cancer.

Maybe I'm taking this so seriously after losing a very close family member to a digestive cancer?

What is everyone else going to do about sausages/bacon etc?

[lljkk]

I love sausages & will continue to eat (& ham). Life is too short to worry about tiny risk increases.

[Bloomburger]

Our local butchers do nitrate free bacon and sausages. I told him one day that I'd not be buying my usual bacon for fear of finishing the men in my family off and he said all butchers dry cured bacon should just be done with salt so is fine.

[LazyDaisey]

I guess most of you didn’t bother to read the guardian article.

“In January 2018, Finnebrogue used this technology to launch genuinely nitrate-free bacon and ham in the UK. It is sold in Sainsbury’s and Waitrose as “Naked Bacon” and “Naked Ham”, and in M&S as “made without nitrites”. Kirsty Adams, who oversaw its launch at M&S, explains that “it’s not really cured”. It’s more like a fresh salted pork injected with a fruit and vegetable extract, and is more perishable than an old-fashioned flitch of bacon – but that doesn’t matter, given that it is kept in a fridge. Because it is quick to produce, this is much more “economically viable” to make than some of the other nitrate-free options, such as slow-cured Parma ham. The bacon currently sells in Waitrose for £3 a pack, which is not the cheapest, but not prohibitive either.”

[Deathraystare]

I am veggie (well, Peskie now) however I am not sure if veggie sausages are not processed? Unless you just use a mix of vegs???

[EleanorReally]

Thanks to this thread, i have done my online shop and changed the usual ham for chicken.

[IHaveBrilloHair]

Nothing, everything carries a risk, its not like we eat them daily, but if you picked apart everything we eat, it would be horrifying in MN terms, but irl a decent, balanced diet, which is what I've always aimed for.

[YesQueen]

I don't eat much of them anyway so I'll carry on. No bowel cancer in the family and my blood is screened every 12 weeks anyway so any cancer would be picked up. I'm on drugs that have a side effect of increased risk of leukaemia so sausages are a drop in the ocean! I like the heck chicken ones

[kateandme]

and thats not if you eat in in mderation that for those who eat far too much

[kateandme]

oh for goodness sake it is not like smoking!
it is tiny increase in risk not a cause.

[llamawearingasombrero]

We will continue to eat sausages. They are lovvvvvvly

[BloodyForeigner]

From what I have read, this does not apply to UK sausages. Indeed, this is from the Guardian article which @cakemonger linked to on p.1. Though for some reason they say they still stopped buying sausages after reading it...

"This caution has kept us as consumers unnecessarily in the dark. Consider sausages. For years, I believed that the unhealthiest part in a cooked English breakfast was the sausage, rather than the bacon. Before I started to research this article, I’d have sworn that sausages fell squarely into the “processed meat” category. They are wrongly listed as such on the NHS website.
But the average British sausage – as opposed to a hard sausage like a French saucisson – is not cured, being made of nothing but fresh meat, breadcrumbs, herbs, salt and E223, a preservative that is non-carcinogenic. After much questioning, two expert spokespeople for the US National Cancer Institute confirmed to me that “one might consider” fresh sausages to be “red meat” and not processed meat, and thus only a “probable” carcinogen."

[sackrifice]

I've not had sausages or any meat for 34 years. So not gonna do anything.

[MaudeLynne]

UK sausages are made from ground/mince pork, not processed/preserved pork. Get your self to the butchers or buy decent sausages from the supermarket. Continental sausages contain preserved/dried/processed pork, the same way that bacon and ham is processed/preserved.

Chorizo, pepperoni, salami etc are the ones to avoid.

[Ariela]

I'm simply going to continue to buy my herb & plain sausages made just from meat, no added nitrates, from my local butcher.
Delicious, and supporting a local business.

[PtarmiganBiscuit]

Sausages aren’t that bad...don’t contain nitrites and aren’t technically processed food. Parma ham fine too...

[Teddybear45]

You could eat red meat cooked Indian / South East Asian style in spices - eating spicy food is known to reduce the risk of bowel cancer. So you could offset the risk.

[mimibunz]

I stopped eating pork in November for ethical reasons and sometimes I miss bacon but there are too many reasons for me not to eat it. And I have other vices, god knows.

[Bloomburger]

You. An buy loads of sausages and bacon and salamis that don't contain nitrates these days.

[soulrider]

It's not sausages, as I understand it

Yep, pretty sure there was a report last year that said the risk was from hot dog type sausages. British style sausages are essentially just minced pork, not processed in the same way at all.

[RedSheep73]

It's not sausages, as I understand it - it's the curing process that's the problem, particularly if it uses nitrates, and normal British sausages aren't cured. They may be fatty, but they aren't cancer causing in the way bacon can be.

[CherryPavlova]

I make my own sausages and burgers, so no processed meats. Really easy to do.
We don’t have bacon very often because we both use hotels for work quite often and my husband sneaks in bacon then.
Vegetarian meals three times a week.

We don’t tend to barbecue much anyway.

[teyem]

Paint, furniture, air fresheners, mattresses, carpets, insulation...VOCs are everywhere and I know this particularly well because I am asthmatic and it so happens that they all make me wheeze. I didn't know they were carcinogenic though.

I can be like the canary in the coalmine if there's a link.

[ScreamingValenta]

Nothing. Any action you take carries a level of risk - I don't want to live in a bubble.

[thatwouldbeanecumenicalmatter]

Well while we're at it, if you want to give yourself a scare read up about the VOCs that constantly leech into your home from vinyl flooring, shower curtains, cling film etc. pulls the pin and runs away

[DontCallMeShitley]

Cauldron veggie sausages? Any thoughts on those?
Beetroot sausages, various makes, some palm oil free, some not.