> The health risk of bacon is largely to do with two food additives: potassium nitrate (also known as saltpetre) and sodium nitrite. It is these that give salamis, bacons and cooked hams their alluring pink colour
Is nitrate/nitrite [1] free prosciutto okay?
EDIT: Apparently not. “Processed meats, which are transformed by salting, curing, or fermentation. This includes everything from hotdogs and bacon, to lunch meats like salami and prosciutto“ [2].
The most worrying part of this article for me is that processed meats that are advertised as "nitrate-free" really just use natural nitrates from celery salt, which aren't much better, if at all.
Don't the studies show that, by and large, no it isn't? Even the conclusion of this article dives in to how little this study is showing directionally. "Processed meat may be another factor to consider when thinking about your overall risk of breast cancer." is far from a definitive "yes it is really killing us" opening title. :(
I mean, yes, it increases your risk. And when we have solved many of the other high causes, it will have an obvious benefit for getting rid of it. So, very glad we know this. But right now? You are far more likely to be killed from other things than from exposure to bacon. Such that, statistically, it isn't where most people should worry about starting.
I was explicitly attacking the strength of the effect. Poorly, I grant.
That is, yes it increases the risk. It is such a weak source, though, that you are still better starting elsewhere, and are here unlikely to die from cancer if you eat these. Contrasted with smoking, where it is a strong influence.
Wait, is it equally strong? We have lots of cohort studies. Do we have studies that show a mechanism of action? If one exists, do we know the circumstances in which it occurs? Are there particular formulations that are risky? Are there food handling or cooking factors we're not aware of?
We know a great deal about the mechanisms of action by which smoke inhalation and tobacco in particular cause cancer.
I don't think the distinction here is merely in strength of the effect.
Ah, but is it nitrite that is killing us, or the subsequent chemical reactions? We can become more pedantic, or more useful, but they are both accurate levels of abstraction, and one is more useful.
Doesn’t appear to be unique to nitrites and nitrates. “Processed meat includes hot dogs, ham, bacon, sausage, and some deli meats. It refers to meat that has been treated in some way to preserve or flavor it,” with processes including “salting, curing, fermenting, and smoking” [1].
The article seems to say that meat that uses nitrates and nitrites is worse than other "processed meat" in general. It's like the worst kind of processed meat.
No, not according to the article. It says that lettuce and other veggies have nitrites and don't cause cancer but the chemical reaction of meat with saltpeter causes the meat to become a carcinogen.
Animal agriculture is a large contributor to climate change, intrinsically inefficient (i.e calories eaten << calories "harvested"), and an ethical nightmare.
I would say it's relevant - not only is reducing consumption of bacon and meats good for your personal health, it's good for our climate and overall environmental health. Raising pigs industrially is a huge environmental problem that affects a lot of people, especially in the American south.
To be honest? Because I really like having a routine. It's something that in a lot of ways I can't have, but I'm exactly the type of person who would benefit a lot from one.
So if cooking breakfast the same way every morning is a way to gain a shred of routine in my life, then I'm all in.
So if its just a routine, wouldn't you be better off enforcing a good routine instead of a bad one? Eating bacon and eggs every morning just because its a routine sounds like a terrible idea. There are more time, health, and money efficient morning rituals...
It's better than denying the evidence and claiming it's a global conspiracy.
Understanding the risks is important, but you literally can't live your life avoiding everything that could cause harm to you. It's about picking your battles.
In this article, it's the nitrates, not the bacon itself. Next time I go to Costco I'll take a look and see if there are options with no or fewer nitrates.
And presumably, the benefits you receive from a predictable morning routine probably have a lasting impact on how the rest of your day goes and far outweighs a miniscule increase in your risk of cancer. With that said, you could think of replacing the bacon with some other ingrediant except for, say, Fridays. Still very routine, maybe a bit healthier, and then a sweet, sweet reward of bacon for making it through the week.
Sometimes, I'd say most of the time actually, people's lifestyle and routine are introduced in order to combat a much worse problem in their lives than slightly elevated cancer risks.
Starting tomorrow, you will eat peanut butter toasts everyday... (peanut butter with no salts, sugars or oils added and the bread should have the least number of ingredients possible that you can easily find) ... just kidding.
I was overweight for most of this decade and lost 65 lbs in the last ~7 months.
I saw this and wanted to say based on that experience, don't feel bad for eating bacon and eggs frequently. One thing I realized is that eggs are like a crazy superfood. An egg is something like 70 calories. But when you eat just one or two, and you can feel quite full for quite a long time. It is still weird to me how that works. And bacon... I eat it in reasonable portions frequently. Same with Italian meats like pancetta or salami.
There is this attitude to vilify certain foods but in my recent experience it's counter productive. It's much better to pay attention to the big picture than to swear you will never eat a specific food again.
I'm willing to pay a premium for my processed meat products (and thus, indirectly, reduce my consumption of them). Does anyone have any experience buying nitrite-free bacon/salami/etc in the US? I think I can still find a butcher locally (and I mean an actual stand-alone butcher store, not the meat/deli counter at a grocer), but what do I ask them for? Just "locally made" or are there brands who eschew adding pure nitrites to their products?
But as the top post indicates, in the US celery-derived chemicals earn the “nitrate-free” label but are chemically indistinguishable from the “real deal” (and thus have the same health concerns).
If you live in the SF bay area, Good Eggs sells several types of uncured bacon. The one from Sonoma County Meat seems the least processed, having only salt and spices added. None of them are cheap though, around $14-16 / lb, far more than what I'd pay at Safeway for the carcinogenic bacon.
And in other news, "nitrate free" bacon sold in the US isn't actually nitrate free;
"Ever since the “war on nitrates” of the 1970s, US consumers have been more savvy about nitrates than those in Europe, and there is a lot of “nitrate-free bacon” on the market. The trouble, as Jill Pell remarks, is that most of the bacon labelled as nitrate-free in the US “isn’t nitrate-free”. It’s made with nitrates taken from celery extract, which may be natural, but produces exactly the same N-nitroso compounds in the meat. Under EU regulation, this bacon would not be allowed to be labelled “nitrate-free”.
“It’s the worst con I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” says Denis Lynn, the chair of Finnebrogue Artisan, a Northern Irish company that makes sausages for many UK supermarkets, including Marks & Spencer."
I get sinus headaches from sodium nitrites (among other things). I was stoked about the nitrite free bacon. Had it, got a headache, found out about celery after a bunch of searching. I need to find a butcher so I can just get straight pork belly.
Are you sure it isn't just salt that's doing that to you?
There's more nitrate in bacon than in plain pork belly to be sure, but there's actually not much of it, and the amounts you need to consume to have a vasoconstrictive effect seems high. Meanwhile: bacon (along with all cured meat and fish) is one of the very saltiest things we eat. Lots of people are salt-sensitive. This is probably what virtually all claims of "Chinese restaurant syndrome" (MSG sensitivity) turned out to be.
You should have no trouble finding pork belly. Try an experiment: just make your own bacon by filling a pan with kosher salt and pushing each side of the pork belly into it until they're all evenly and aggressively covered. Wrap the meat in plastic wrap, dump the pan, and put the meat back in it; leave it in the fridge for 3-4† days. Rinse it off and slice it. See if you get a headache from eating it.
(Home-cured bacon is good but if you don't add some of the carcinogen back to the cure, it's not safe to keep much longer than fresh meat is).
† That's a light cure, but long enough for this experiment, and if you're new to baconing and don't know what to look for, under-cured is better than over.
I am actually sure. I eat salt daily. I'll try that with the pork belly because it sounds delicious.
The big footnote missing from my post is that I'm celiac. I've done a ton of trial and error to find foods that cause me problems. I basically eat chicken (seasoned with salt and pepper) and rice (with butter) everyday. I only drink water and unsweetened vanilla almond milk. My snacks are popcorn and salted potato or corn chips. On this diet I don't get sinus headaches.
No one likes to hear it, but I've isolated monosodium glutamate as a trigger too. It's in a ton of flavored chips that I ate thinking they'd be fine for me.
Give me a month to try this. I'll let you know how it turns out.
You eat salt daily, of course, but you're never eating so much concentrated salt as you are when you eat any significant amount of bacon. I'm not suggesting that you're so sensitive that the amount of salt you get from a salt shaker, or from seasoning a steak or a burger before cooking it, is going to set you off. There's so much salt in the bacon that it dramatically alters the texture of the meat!
You also believe yourself to be sensitive to MSG, but the common thread between the foods that are causing you symptoms might not be a pair of poorly-observed sensitivities, but rather that the foods that trigger you tend to be very salty.
but then you pour salt on it when cooking. I mean who eats saltless bacon? Gross. Why would you even bother.
Anyway this stuff really doesn't matter. People have been attacking foods since I was a baby. It's nearly always lies. Literally every single thing that you can eat has been attacked as being fattening, cancer causing, or "bad for you" and 99.999999% of the time there is zero science behind it.
For example people to this day claim that aspartame is poisonous even tho it is most definitely not. And now those same people attack Splenda. The fact is none of them know what they're talking about and they're unhappy with their lives so they don't want you enjoying yours. So they attack your foods. This has been going on at least my entire life but probably much longer than that.
You talk about science behind things like we have 100% knowledge. There is no science in celiacs and sinus headaches, but many celiacs report them.
Our knowledge of food is super limited. Our medicine is super limited when it comes to auto immune disorders.
My headaches don't exist according to science, but I dealt with them for 23 years and figure out a fix. Keep your mind open a bit, we don't have everything figured out and people's experiences are very real.
You mean your knowledge. The scientific world knows a lot about how food works and what it does to the human body. It could know more, but because our medical research is driven by profit motive instead of "the greater good", food research is low on the totem pole. The interference of corporations such as the subject of this story certainly hasn't helped the situation.
For example, General Mills is probably the most guilty single-party with regards to the diabetes and obesity epidemic, but nobody is holding them responsible. We should be. If corporations and their executive leadership were punished for the terrible things they do to our civilization, they would possibly take care to be more responsible in the future.
I am guessing that you've been tested for Celiac. If not, see my post from a few months back; i had a hyper sensitivity to gluten for over 3 years and found a fix:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15699841
I have (had?) fructose malabsorption. I could digest sugar fine, but high fructose foods (HFCS, apples) not so well. My theory is being celiac my body attacked my small intestine and messed up digestion there. It could have been a gut bacteria problem, but I saw that more as a symptom of the underlying disease.
I didn't even mind that part so much. Sinus headaches were killing me. I thought I had brain cancer. Cutting out foods that trigger those has been my quest over the last 5 years and I have a pretty good handle on it now. Apparently chronic sinusitus is common in celiacs and it's pretty understudied. [1]
I'm a bit late here, but I am wondering if you've considered the possibility that your sinus headaches are actually migraines? The two are often confused because they present similarly, and it is believed amongst headache and migraine experts that most so-called sinus headaches are actually migraines. It would explain the MSG trigger, too.
No. Bacon, salami and some other meats must be cured by FDA definition (either nirites added and sold as "cured" or sold as "uncured" but with "celery juice" which really means it's still cured)
Not only is meat cured with celery extract still cured, but it probably has more nitrates than "artificially" cured meat, since if you're using powdered nitrate salt, you can add precisely the amount you need.
Generally: if it tastes like what you expect ham or bacon to taste like, or it looks like what you expect it to look like, it's cured with nitrates. Nitrates have a powerful effect on flavor and color.
> Generally: if it tastes like what you expect ham or bacon to taste like, or it looks like what you expect it to look like, it's cured with nitrates.
So you are saying that even if I got my own raw pork belly from the butcher and learned how to cure it properly with salt, its look and taste would still be inferior to the delicious blocks of bacon I get at any chain grocery store?
(1) You can look at that price tag and see why it's unlikely to be your go-to bacon,
(2) Last I checked, Benton's used a nitrate cure, and
(3) Seriously, intensely smoked food (Benton's bacon qualifies) is probably going to be more carcinogenic from the smoking compounds than from the cure. Unlike nitrate->N-nitrosamine, we're pretty clear on how smoked food causes gastric cancer.
If you live near a large enough community of former Yugoslavians, you can find nitrate-free Suho Meso, which (when it's good) is like a cross between bacon and prosciutto. However, it contains all the carcinogens of smoked meat. That said the largest brand in the US (US-produced, actually) is not nitrate-free.
I was going to suggest uncured bacon, but it looks like even superorganic uncured bacon has celery powder[1]. I guess nationally-distributed refrigerated meat products need more preservative than just low levels of salt. I'd suggest buying "pork belly" from a butcher. A good butcher should have more fresh product and be able to answer questions about preparation.
You don't need to go to a special butcher. Asian groceries usually have pork belly and you're seeing it at more and more "normal" supermarkets too. The problem, though, is that it tastes nothing like bacon.
It is possible! However keep in mind: 1) It'll look completely different than normal bacon 2) It'll taste very different than normal bacon. 3) It'll be more likely to give you botulism. 4) It'll be no less likely to give you cancer.
All of which helps explain why it's so hard to find. :)
The article linked in this post directly addresses (3) as being an absolute non-issue spread by FUD, and the whole article is about (4) being very probably untrue.
It also goes into solid detail on the extent of (1) and (2), neither of which seem particularly groundbreaking.
There is an ongoing debate over what actually causes the observed cancer increase from eating (some) meats, and which meats it applies to. Some studies suggest the issue is red meat in general, not cured meats; others focus on a more vague "processed meat" category. (This is made even more confusing by the US habit of selling cured meats labelled as "uncured", which was touched on in the article.)
We do know that nitrites can turn into cancer causing chemicals, but we also know that they do so in low quantities, and that a lot of things in our diet contain nitrites. The "cured-labelled-as-uncured" American bacon gets its nitrites from celery, which contains a lot, yet celery doesn't seem to be causing a lot of cancer. There are some vague theories about how "nitrites in plants are special!", but so far, every attempt to study that has shown the reverse as far as I'm aware.
So in my view, the situation is confusing, but there is certainly evidence that bacon causes cancer. What I don't really buy is the idea that it's obviously the nitrites. It's great that parma hams are made without them, but there's no study (nor is there likely to ever be a study) that says "good news, eating parma hams has 0% impact on your risk of cancer". Especially since they probably do give you cancer, if all the studies showing links to red meat are borne out.
But eh. Maybe it does lower your risk. :) But I think if I was worried about it, I'd skip all bacon, given how nonexistent the evidence is to suggest nitrite-free bacon is actually healthy.
Basically remove bacon, chorizo etc. from your life. Heavier meats I tend to avoid, but my girlfriend loves the first two. Read her excerpts of the articles last night and it made for an awkward bedtime. It's not that I seek these types of warnings, but given how often she uses bacon in meals it was a must to share..
If your girlfriend wants to trade vastly increased life satisfaction for a slightly higher risk of developing one of the slowest-growing and most treatable cancers, I say let her.
In the article, the author discusses a number of other cancers (breast, brain...) that nitrosamines cause. Colon and rectal cancers are the most prevalent, but not at all the only ones. And... quality prosciutto and other pork belly products can be obtained from most local butchers without nitrites or nitrates, so you can avoid these things and still live very happily indeed with salty pork.
Also, the results of nitrosamines happen faster than I believe you expect from what you posted. Colon and rectal cancers have been on the rise for decades.
So, I see your point, but it's an uglier problem than I think you realize and there are some easy solutions available.
"Vastly increased" is subjective at best and sounds like a bad excuse. I was "Paleo" for years and decided to try mostly plant based recently. As background I smoked my own bacon and had 1-2 eggs that accompanied it every morning for years.
I haven't eaten meat since Jan 1 of this year as an experiment in blood panel results, body fat, and general "feel" of abandoning meats. I was already mostly dairy free (don't consume animal milks with the exception of purchased baked goods or cheeses - a few times a week at worst) for over 7 years.
If you haven't tried a shift toward a plant based diet, I would argue you have no clue. Because I didn't. Giving meat up is actually easier than things like cheese as an example.
I lost 10lbs of body fat in a month (5'11 @ 175 --> 165) and increased strength in January. I also improved all blood panel markers by a minimum of 15% (WellnessFX). But the best part is the subjective part: overall feel. I feel much better, more consistently and more often on mostly plant based. Things within my pallette have changed quickly.
Dr. Greger's "How Not to Die" has helped in some of the education and all the references to studies relating. Cooking, however is a fundamental shift from Paleo so that is one of the hardest parts you have to focus on right away. I had so many recipes I loved and became frustrated early finding alternatives. However after 2 months I'm enjoying cooking with new foods and techniques. I've picked up about a dozen new cookbooks and have learned a lot in short order.
Overall, again, I feel your statement is unfounded and I'd suggest for those interested in improving their health to try slow shifts to more plants. There's only upside and there are many studies in support of.
The final piece of it is our planet. Animals raised for meat production requires excessive energy and waste. Beyond that most of our meat supply chain is riddled with things such as E Coli (supported in many recent studies - as an example of the many: https://www.asm.org/index.php/mbiosphere/item/6219-connectin...).
TL:DR
Don't miss meat after giving it up. Those who say it adds "value" without actually trying don't have basis to support their claim.
Nothing has changed so I'm not sure the significance. It's mainly 5-8 miles per week of running, body weight exercises, free weights a few times per week and meditation. This, also, has been replicated in studies.
I've done rounds of Keto while "Paleo" as well. The difference is in the overall nutrition. Meat, outside of protein, is weak per calorie when compared to complete nutrition. It's also higher, per calorie, with regard to negative health aspects depending on the type and cut of meat.
The protein argument is probably one of the worst of the food uneducated. I could flip your argument and ask about actual nutrition. What vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc does meat provide? Very few.
Protein? Peas, quinoa, beans, nuts, tempeh, leafy greens, seeds, and the list goes on. The difference is something like quinoa is that, compared to any meat, it is calorie for calorie more nutritionally complete.
Finally why are you focused on protein to begin with? And how much protein is required for you daily? Overconsumption of has shown negative effects:
Also your situation of losing 10 lbs per month doesn't look sustainable in long term, and likely result of some significant calories cut or metabolism stress.
But what will happen after body burn all fat? Keep posting )
>Those who say it adds "value" without actually trying don't have basis to support their claim
Please, speak for yourself. Some of us have enough trouble find a variety of food to eat without such restrictions. It is actually insulting to be told that radically changing my diet as an unintentional lifelong picky eater is some trivial exercise.
Furthermore it is arrogant to judge value so certainly on behalf of strangers. Put frankly, who are you to tell me what I do and don't like?
I don't think he told you anything. He wrote something and you read it.
There's also mentions of "slow shifts" and similar, indicating that the change of your diet is not radical and sudden, but gradual and slow.
Picky eaters have a somewhat disease and should try to incorporate variety. Otherwise you risk black swans by eating practically the same thing all your life. Eating many ingredients is antifragile :D
There was no basis provided. I didn't judge anyone and have tried many diet changes over the years in my quest to better understand food, nutrition and health. I didn't tell anyone to do anything but made the simple suggestion that plant based has made marked improvements in areas for me and that there are no downsides to increasing plants in diet.
Did I ever try to tell you what you should like? Nope. Get a grip.
Looks like the picky eater issue runs a bit deeper for you if you take such offense. I am a picky eater who has taken to eating many newer foods the past 5 years. It truly is as trivial as just doing it. You may gag at some stuff but as with everything in life, if you don't even try to push through it then what can you expect.
> Dr. Greger's "How Not to Die" has helped in some of the education and all the references to studies relating.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, you may buy yourself some years with virtuous living, but you are still going to die. It's worth considering whether you want to give up all your small temporal pleasures.
The point is not baseless longevity. It's to live healthy longer. I have no delusion I won't die. But I have seen people die unhealthy and suffer. My goal is to maximize health overall.
Did I state longevity was my goal? No. "Temporal pleasures" are subjective. And you're conflating your tastes with mine incorrectly. I stated I ate a lot of meat, and enjoyed it. I don't miss it having cut it out. That was very surprising to me and I'm simply sharing thoughts. I also suggested if you haven't tried it, how would you know? You don't. Plain and simple.
So what you're saying is you have a problem with a book that has thousands of peer reviewed studies as references. Your only argument is still completely subjective.
Is there some objective way to answer the question of how much we should be willing to sacrifice for greater longevity? It's entirely a values question.
Dr Gregor references genuine studies and provides some good nutritional advice but he is fundamentally opposed to foods derived from farming animals as are many Internet commentators who come out of the woodwork when there is any controversy around meat and health.
I don't doubt his good intentions and I think he attempts to be balanced and use science to back his arguments. But he clearly starts from the position that meat is bad as I think perhaps you do. And perhaps it is. But I would prefer to see that established without prejudice.
If you have an ethical problem with eating meat then don't eat it. But I get a little tired of people proselytising as a result of becoming born again vegans.
As for curing meat. As you say meat can be dangerous to consumer due to contamination. I would rather a slightly elevated risk of cancer from moderate use of nitrate cured meats than near certain death from botulism or some other nasty. I really would like to see a safer alternative become commercially available but I don't want to be second guessing the microbial safety of my cold cuts. I rarely eat bacon but cold cured meats with salad are a relatively important part of my diet as cooking in our kitchen heats the house too much during the warmer months.
I think the big problem with meat, as with the sugar epidemic, is overconsumption. If every meat eater ate meat in moderation as part of a balanced diet there would be far less environmental impact and animal cruelty than creating a small number of vegan converts. Red meat consumption has certainly dropped in Australia though chicken has offset some of that.
In my lifetime experts have been wrong about so much when it comes to food and nutrition I just can’t take any of them seriously. So I try to imagine what kept humans alive for 300k+ years. Then you realize humans live in incredibly diverse environments and manage to survive on whatever they can find. So we can pretty much survive eating almost anything. There are plenty of people who live long enough to know their grandchildren while eating the most disgusting toxic foods.
Thus the only guide I can trust is, how does this food make me feel when I eat it? Coca cola makes me spike then feel like shit, eggs make me feel happy and satiated, bacon and avocado too. Fried chicken makes me feel grimy and sluggish as does pasta and beer. Leafy greens make me feel amazing and make my stool less disgusting.
I can only imagine this is all that earlier humans had to go on and so I choose to listen to my body.
Low average life span had a lot more to do with high infant mortality rate. It wasn't that most people were dead by 40, just that a lot more were dead by 5. If you made it through adolescence gray hair was totally within reach.
> Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today, and the incidence of degenerative disease was 10% of ours. Their levels of physical activity and hence calorific intakes were approximately twice ours. They had relatively little access to alcohol and tobacco; and due to their correspondingly high intake of fruits, whole grains, oily fish and vegetables, they consumed levels of micro- and phytonutrients at approximately ten times the levels considered normal today.
That infant mortality was sky-high prior to the 20th century is pretty well known - I can't think of a good, detailed source for that off the top of my head. But what I can tell you, on the subject of longevity in general, is to do the following:
- Look back through the genealogical record, for you personally. "People old enough to have kids" is a good sort-of proxy for life expectancy minus infant mortality. I personally found that my ancestors regularly lived into their 70s and 80s. Very few of my ancestors died younger than 70, going back to the 1600s.
- Another good example is to look at history. Pick up Livy, for example, or someone along those lines, and see how often someone dies of non-violent causes before they've entered old age. It's pretty uncommon. When it did happen, it was usually because of a horrific plague that killed people left and right.
Basically, historically, people generally (we're talking about a huge expanse of time and different cultures here) lived pretty healthy lives. They were much more active than we were, ate fewer processed foods, and often ate very healthy foods. People didn't smoke and didn't eat much sugar. There also wasn't a lot of industry spewing carcinogens and endocrine distributors everywhere. If you lived in a peaceful area and time, in relatively sanitary condition, your odds were very good that you'd live long into old age. Even if you lived in a nasty city (and I'd call Victorian England pretty nasty) your odds weren't bad. Where things fell apart was in war and plague. And as discussed in the paper above, when people did die in old age, they tended to pretty quickly of infection-related causes.
Life expectancy has probably risen and fallen over time, depending on different historical and cultural factors. The popular model of "it's just been getting better and better over time" is not at all correct - it's no coincidence most charts begin in ~1900. The Victorian England paper is a good basis for reflection because it's clear that the medical technology of that time was not dramatically different than that available a few hundred years or even two thousand years earlier, and neither was their diet or lifestyle extraordinary, even if it was good.
I'm a little confused as to why you're being down-voted, save your audacity in being cautious about nutritional "experts" having a poor track-record in their dissemination of advice. Mere decades ago, the statement that a high-protein/high-fat diet is optimal would fly in the face of expert-opinion. It is not so many years ago that using trans-fat laden vegetable oil was considered "healthier" than using rendered fat.
You have stated in a common-sense way that ingesting huge quantities of sugar and trans-fats make you feel terrible, and ingesting leafy greens make you feel physically well; not that one should simply eat what their cravings tell them to. As sensitivities to certain foods can manifest themselves in different ways on an individual level, recommending that people pay close attention to the impact that certain foods have on their energy-levels, mood, and performance is sound advice.
My comments are usually[0] down voted within a minute or two of being posted. There is no correlation between my comment's final upvote count and the initial downvote. The initial downvotes are, as near as I can tell, a constant. My only guess is I upset someone along the way and I'm getting brigaded. I hold some controversial opinions (to HN) and I comment without fear, so this is understandable.
0: It might happen for every post but I don't hover on my posts hitting refresh.
Most people who made it past early childhood could definitely survive to see grandkids as early as 25 or 30 years old. I'd prefer to live into my 80s however and to do that with a high probability of success requires a little more knowledge than our ancestors had, imo.
As far as I understand it shouldn’t cost more. It will just mean that the color is not pink, which consumers may need to be educated about. It may need to be aged more to attain a pink color, which granted could cost more.
It definitely will cost more, longer time to process means more storage, less shelf life means more waste from lost sales which has to be costed in. This doesn't just apply to processed meats, plenty of cheap crap is packed with preservatives, the reason it's so damn cheap is that so little of it goes to waste when it can stay on the shelf for months.
That doesn't mean preservatives must be inherently bad or carcinogenic though - e.g canned foods, dehydrated fruit, while things are lost in the process it doesn't necessarily have to make the food toxic. But when you see a 20p cake you can bet it's going to be bad for you, not just because it's sugary, but because it's 20p and therefor must have a long shelf life, and cake isn't inherently long lived.
There is no such thing as "carcinogen-free" bacon. Bacon tastes the way it does because of the carcinogen; further, the only reason it's safe to sell in packages is that it's cured with that carcinogen, without which these products are all ideal germinators for botulism.
Products that claim to be "nitrate-free" are lying. They're exploiting the native nitrite/nitrate content of (extracts of) green vegetables rather than adding nitrates directly. Your body does not care about this difference, but your psychology does.
There’s some discussion of the Botulism claim in the article. Apparently Italian ham producers dropped nitrates in 1993, and there hasn’t been a case of Botulism since. The article also mentions that Danish organic bacon is supposedly nitrate free.
As others have pointed out, it does look as though you've bought into the "meat propaganda"?... cant believe I just said that :P
To be fair I think many people have been unconsciously fed misinformation - for instance I somehow picked up the "processed food == mixed up non-specific animal parts" thing without ever looking into it or thinking much.
I'm interested.. can you remember where you picked up the botulism thing? did you live through that anti-nitrates era or do you think you might have picked it up from more modern forms echoed around the web?
No, I'm working from the Underground Meat Collective's Open Source HACCP plan. If you've ever visited Underground in Madison, you know they're not "meat propagandists" (well, not that kind of meat propagandist; they're definitely pro-meat). They worked with the University of Wisconsin to build a commercial-grade HACCP plan for their charcuterie program and then, unlike any commercial meat processor, publish it to the world.
You can look it up online --- in fact, you can use it as a HACCP plan for your own cured meat enterprise if you want, which is amazing --- and see where and why it requires nitrites.
I absolutely trust these people more than I trust a random British food writer who says hot dogs give people brain cancer.
Why the surprise? We have had horsemeat, BSE and much else by way of meat industry scandals in the UK. Yet nobody cares!
As a Waitrose shopping rich person you could be sold some 'Duchy Farms organic, free-range, humanely murdered meat' and buy in to the concept much like you might buy some other deluxe product on their shelves. However, if down the pub and ordering off the menu, would you care at all about what is in the pies, sausages and bacon? It would not be the place to go full-vegan-socially-awkward, particularly if you were hungry and someone else was paying the bill.
Most meat products are quite alien to our taste - ask a small child - but, along with alcoholic drinks, coffee, tobacco and much else that is quite abhorrent at first, we learn to go along with the rest of the human tribe and go along with it. There is a social aspect to eating meat, that allegedly amazing smell of bacon isn't just about satisfying one's cravings for such food, it is also about that social experience, even if eating on one's own.
Anyone who already eats sausages/bacon/burgers in canteen style environments or after a few beers from some roadside van is already saying don't care about lots of things, so some added nitrate scare counts for nothing. We would still be eating cow-brain on toast had it not been for how tragic BSE turned out.
The nitrites and nitrates are essential to making bacon (and other cured meats) taste good. The article is clickbait; the risk of bowel cancer in the study was increased 18% - that is, from a low number to an 18% larger low number. This isn't a public health crisis, this is a perfectly rational individual choice.
Also, "uncured" bacon is a lie; one of the main ingredients is celery powder, which contains - you guessed it - naturally occurring nitrites.
Approximately 4.3 percent of men and women will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer at some point during their lifetime, based on 2012-2014 data.
Your chance (roughly) goes from 4.3% to 5% if you eat bacon (and salumi, prosciutto, etc) regularly. Whether or not you personally consider this small or large, it seems like a pretty straightforward cost/benefit analysis.
The author fails to meaningfully contextualise the risk, giving what I think is a completely misleading account.
According to the best available evidence, eating 50g per day of processed meat increases the relative risk of developing colorectal cancer by 18%. Given the prevalence and prognosis of colorectal cancer, this equates to about one premature death per 200 people as a result of eating processed meat.
Is processed meat somewhat bad for your health? Almost certainly. Is your daily bacon sandwich worth a 0.5% chance of a premature death? That's entirely your decision. I'm a vegetarian for ethical reasons, but that level of risk wouldn't faze me in the least if I really liked bacon. Factors like obesity, inactivity, smoking and alcohol use dwarf the risks posed by processed meat.
Constant fretting over small risks posed by our diet may be distracting us from clear messaging on big risks. I've heard countless people say "everything gives you cancer, so why worry about it?" or "scientists can't make their mind up about what you're supposed to eat, so I just ignore them". It isn't news that smoking, being obese or drinking too much alcohol are incredibly bad for your health, but it's a message that deserves repeating. I fear that those messages are being drowned out by a constant trickle of stories about "superfoods" and cancer risks.
The author of this article has previously made exactly this point in an article criticising the "clean eating" fad:
"When mainstream diets start to sicken people, it is unsurprising that many of us should seek other ways of eating to keep ourselves safe from harm. Our collective anxiety around diet was exacerbated by a general impression that mainstream scientific advice on diet – inflated by newspaper headlines – could not be trusted. First these so-called experts tell us to avoid fat, then sugar, and all the while people get less and less healthy. What will these “experts” say next, and why should we believe them?"
>According to the best available evidence, eating 50g per day of processed meat increases the relative risk of developing colorectal cancer by 18%. Given the prevalence and prognosis of colorectal cancer, this equates to about one premature death per 200 people as a result of eating processed meat.
Sorry, how did you get to that 0.5%? I'm not sure it's correct. Haven't looked at it enough, but I was thinking that if relative risk of colorectal cancer increases by 18%, if there are ~40 cases per 100.000 people, then it's going from 0.04% to ~0.05%.
Didn't even read the article, if anyone can run some numbers and clarify? (genuinely curious)
Yes, you did it right. The parent comment was unfortunately incorrect.
To me this is an absolute non-issue. Even if the research is free of bias and error (debatable), it's a tiny chance of cancer late in life. Spend your time worrying about almost anything else (diet, exercise, avoiding drugs), etc. and it will be orders of magnitude more important.
There are 40 cases per 100,000 people in any given year. Your chance of developing colorectal cancer at any point in your life is about 4.3%, with a survival rate at five years of about 65%. An 18% increase in risk of developing colorectal cancer equates to about a 0.5% chance of dying prematurely.
Some people will survive beyond five years but die of cancer anyway; I didn't bother factoring this in, partly because I'm lazy, partly because I couldn't find relevant data and partly because the median age at diagnosis for colorectal cancer is 67.
> 0.5% chance of dying prematurely.
> the median age at diagnosis for colorectal cancer is 67.
So statistically speaking eating 50g of processed meat a day reduces your life expectancy by 3.2 days: (78 years life expectancy in US - 67 median age of getting cancer - 1 year of dying from cancer) * 0.005 chance of receiving cancer * 0.18 increase of cancer probability * 365 days.
On a related note, as a new parent, I’ve been inundated with advice where no sense of absolute risk or prior probability is given. For example, stuff like “don’t sleep baby on stomach because of increased SIDS risk” or “not inducing at 41 weeks increases chance of stillbirth”. It’s like what am I supposed to do with that? Without additional quantification, it’s hard to do any kind of cost-benefit analysis. Things like convenience, sustainability, and financial burden matter too and you need to be able to find the right trade off. Even vague casual quantifications like “the chances are super duper low” would be sufficient in most cases to take action upon.
What value of numbers would change your mind about the trade-off between sleep quality and risk of sudden death? SIDS incidence is extremely rare, s you check by counting how many babies you've known and how many died.
There is an agent added to pork meat to make it look pink. The pink making substance is called natrium nitrate E250 look for it the next time you shop meat in the super market. Natrium nitrate has a skull symbol marking it as a poisonous substance on Wikipedia. Food industry labels natrium nitrate not as a make pork look pink but as a preservative.
To avoid natrium nitrate you can by some ecological food.
In terms of harmful ingredients, phospates (used to increase water content) might actualy be more dangerous than nitrates. Consumption of added phospates is linked to renal failure, CVD, and yes, bowel cancer.
It's thought that disruption of biophoton communication is the mechanism by which phosphates promote cell undifferentiation, proliferation, and, eventually, cancer.
This article drastically overstates the evidence, which comes not from experiments but from epidemiology--that is, purely observational studies where you ask people what they eat and follow them to see what happens. This type of study has a horrible track record, and there's a solid theoretical basis for expecting them to produce false results. That there are "more than 400" such studies is irrelevant, because the problem with epidemiological studies isn't a problem with sample size, and the same confounder can distort all 400 studies in the same way.
First: it is not true that the nitrates in green vegetables are entirely benign. All sodium nitrite potentially metabolizes to sodium nitrate; depending on what vegetables you consume and when you consume them, many have nitrate content; all nitrate you consume potentially metabolizes to N-nitroso compounds. People have claimed that other compounds in vegetables neutralize the formation of nitrosamines in the digestive tract; researchers have refuted that claim.
You knew you were in trouble when the article tried to make a clear dividing line between vegetables and meats, because it's not even surprising that vegetables can be carcinogenic. When cooked, potatoes, corn, flour, coffee, and peanuts all create significant amounts of acrylamide, which is also a known and potent carcinogen.
"Slow-cured, nitrate-free, artisan hams are one thing," says this article. What, exactly, does that mean? "Nitrate" and "slow-cured" are practically synonyms. Nitrates (the slow-acting form of curing salt) are what prevents the germination of botulism. Whether the ham cure uses "Prague Powder" curing salts or celery powder, the biological impact is the same --- but because people have been so alarmed about nitrosamines for so long, virtually everybody (falsely!) claims to sell "nitrate-free" product.
To a pretty good first approximation, everything delicious adds some additional exogenous risk of carcinogenesis. It may very well be that cured meats carry relatively more risk than other foods (it seems very unlikely that switching from store-brand bacon to artisanal ham will help you here). But this article, written by "British food writer" Bee Wilson, doesn't even include the word "milligram" --- but does think you should know that someone once found a correlation between hot dogs and brain cancer.
> it is not true that the nitrates in green vegetables are entirely benign. All sodium nitrite potentially metabolizes to sodium nitrate; depending on what vegetables you consume and when you consume them, many have nitrate content; all nitrate you consume potentially metabolizes to N-nitroso compounds.
I think that this point is made in the article:
> It’s made with nitrates taken from celery extract, which may be natural, but produces exactly the same N-nitroso compounds in the meat. Under EU regulation, this bacon would not be allowed to be labelled “nitrate-free”.
You also say:
> prevents the germination of botulism
The article also talks about botulism, seems to claim it's overblown propaganda by the meat industry:
> Does making ham without nitrite lead to botulism? If so, it is a little strange that in the 25 years that Parma ham has been made without nitrites, there has not been a single case of botulism associated with it. Almost all the cases of botulism from preserved food – which are extremely rare – have been the result of imperfectly preserved vegetables, such as bottled green beans, peas and mushrooms. The botulism argument was a smokescreen.
You seem to be ignoring the fact that meats can be cured with plain old Sodium Chloride as mentioned in the article. Forgive my ignorance if I'm wrong there, as I read the article but haven't any other knowledge on this topic.
No, you're correct, the traditional approaches to curing are salt (NaCl), sugar, and smoking. No need of saltpetre or nitrites. You can cure your own truly nitrate-free bacon at home if you're so inclined.
Smoking, of course, introduces its own set of carcinogens.
I just came back from the shop in my village where they were selling bacon made on the local farm. Having recently read this article I checked the ingredients: Preservatives (E250, E252). A quick search told me that E250 is Sodium nitrite, and 252 is potassium nitrate (saltpetre). Apparently the whole range 240-259 is for nitrates.
Are the nitrites particularly risky versus the alternatives? I recall the world health organization warning about basically all forms of red meat and cured meat: http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/
Well the FDA, USDA, etc have all but destroyed small farm independent food processing so we'll all have to wait until our central planners decide to change their definition of cured meats to include those not treated with nitrates.
>Learning that your own risk of cancer has increased from something like 5% to something like 6% may not be frightening enough to put you off bacon sandwiches for ever. But learning that consumption of processed meat causes an additional 34,000 worldwide cancer deaths a year is much more chilling
No, it really isn't. This is pure sensationalism. I can't stand articles which try so desperately to scare me. It makes me even less likely to follow suggestions.
> The WHO advised that consuming 50g of processed meat a day – equivalent to just a couple of rashers of bacon or one hotdog – would raise the risk of getting bowel cancer by 18% over a lifetime. (Eating larger amounts raises your risk more.) Learning that your own risk of cancer has increased from something like 5% to something like 6% may not be frightening enough to put you off bacon sandwiches for ever.
Uh, no, it isn't. Does anybody even eat "a couple of rashers" of bacon per day?
179 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadIs nitrate/nitrite [1] free prosciutto okay?
EDIT: Apparently not. “Processed meats, which are transformed by salting, curing, or fermentation. This includes everything from hotdogs and bacon, to lunch meats like salami and prosciutto“ [2].
[1] Is there a single word for these?
[2] https://www.vox.com/2015/10/26/9616524/processed-meat-bacon-...
I mean, yes, it increases your risk. And when we have solved many of the other high causes, it will have an obvious benefit for getting rid of it. So, very glad we know this. But right now? You are far more likely to be killed from other things than from exposure to bacon. Such that, statistically, it isn't where most people should worry about starting.
No, the studies are very clear. They were widely misreported.
There are two things: how good the evidence is, and how strong the effect is.
The evidence that processed red meat causes cancer is now as strong as the evidence that smoking causes cancer. We know that both do cause cancer.
But processed red meat doesn't cause much cancer. Smoking causes a lot of cancer.
That is, yes it increases the risk. It is such a weak source, though, that you are still better starting elsewhere, and are here unlikely to die from cancer if you eat these. Contrasted with smoking, where it is a strong influence.
We know a great deal about the mechanisms of action by which smoke inhalation and tobacco in particular cause cancer.
I don't think the distinction here is merely in strength of the effect.
[1] https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/world-health-organization...
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnism
After reading this article, I think I'm going to continue eating bacon and eggs every morning.
Why not occasionally? I’m not going to stop eating bacon and ham. But I might stop keeping it regularly stocked at home.
To be honest? Because I really like having a routine. It's something that in a lot of ways I can't have, but I'm exactly the type of person who would benefit a lot from one.
So if cooking breakfast the same way every morning is a way to gain a shred of routine in my life, then I'm all in.
That's the human default. People never want to change their lifestyle. Just like how most people don't exercise and are overweight.
It's just not really something to celebrate.
Understanding the risks is important, but you literally can't live your life avoiding everything that could cause harm to you. It's about picking your battles.
In this article, it's the nitrates, not the bacon itself. Next time I go to Costco I'll take a look and see if there are options with no or fewer nitrates.
I saw this and wanted to say based on that experience, don't feel bad for eating bacon and eggs frequently. One thing I realized is that eggs are like a crazy superfood. An egg is something like 70 calories. But when you eat just one or two, and you can feel quite full for quite a long time. It is still weird to me how that works. And bacon... I eat it in reasonable portions frequently. Same with Italian meats like pancetta or salami.
There is this attitude to vilify certain foods but in my recent experience it's counter productive. It's much better to pay attention to the big picture than to swear you will never eat a specific food again.
Yes. It's everywhere and costs about the same. But that may not be sufficient.
"Ever since the “war on nitrates” of the 1970s, US consumers have been more savvy about nitrates than those in Europe, and there is a lot of “nitrate-free bacon” on the market. The trouble, as Jill Pell remarks, is that most of the bacon labelled as nitrate-free in the US “isn’t nitrate-free”. It’s made with nitrates taken from celery extract, which may be natural, but produces exactly the same N-nitroso compounds in the meat. Under EU regulation, this bacon would not be allowed to be labelled “nitrate-free”.
“It’s the worst con I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” says Denis Lynn, the chair of Finnebrogue Artisan, a Northern Irish company that makes sausages for many UK supermarkets, including Marks & Spencer."
There's more nitrate in bacon than in plain pork belly to be sure, but there's actually not much of it, and the amounts you need to consume to have a vasoconstrictive effect seems high. Meanwhile: bacon (along with all cured meat and fish) is one of the very saltiest things we eat. Lots of people are salt-sensitive. This is probably what virtually all claims of "Chinese restaurant syndrome" (MSG sensitivity) turned out to be.
You should have no trouble finding pork belly. Try an experiment: just make your own bacon by filling a pan with kosher salt and pushing each side of the pork belly into it until they're all evenly and aggressively covered. Wrap the meat in plastic wrap, dump the pan, and put the meat back in it; leave it in the fridge for 3-4† days. Rinse it off and slice it. See if you get a headache from eating it.
(Home-cured bacon is good but if you don't add some of the carcinogen back to the cure, it's not safe to keep much longer than fresh meat is).
† That's a light cure, but long enough for this experiment, and if you're new to baconing and don't know what to look for, under-cured is better than over.
The big footnote missing from my post is that I'm celiac. I've done a ton of trial and error to find foods that cause me problems. I basically eat chicken (seasoned with salt and pepper) and rice (with butter) everyday. I only drink water and unsweetened vanilla almond milk. My snacks are popcorn and salted potato or corn chips. On this diet I don't get sinus headaches.
No one likes to hear it, but I've isolated monosodium glutamate as a trigger too. It's in a ton of flavored chips that I ate thinking they'd be fine for me.
Give me a month to try this. I'll let you know how it turns out.
You also believe yourself to be sensitive to MSG, but the common thread between the foods that are causing you symptoms might not be a pair of poorly-observed sensitivities, but rather that the foods that trigger you tend to be very salty.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bacon+nutritional+value&rlz=...
Anyway this stuff really doesn't matter. People have been attacking foods since I was a baby. It's nearly always lies. Literally every single thing that you can eat has been attacked as being fattening, cancer causing, or "bad for you" and 99.999999% of the time there is zero science behind it.
For example people to this day claim that aspartame is poisonous even tho it is most definitely not. And now those same people attack Splenda. The fact is none of them know what they're talking about and they're unhappy with their lives so they don't want you enjoying yours. So they attack your foods. This has been going on at least my entire life but probably much longer than that.
Our knowledge of food is super limited. Our medicine is super limited when it comes to auto immune disorders.
My headaches don't exist according to science, but I dealt with them for 23 years and figure out a fix. Keep your mind open a bit, we don't have everything figured out and people's experiences are very real.
You mean your knowledge. The scientific world knows a lot about how food works and what it does to the human body. It could know more, but because our medical research is driven by profit motive instead of "the greater good", food research is low on the totem pole. The interference of corporations such as the subject of this story certainly hasn't helped the situation.
For example, General Mills is probably the most guilty single-party with regards to the diabetes and obesity epidemic, but nobody is holding them responsible. We should be. If corporations and their executive leadership were punished for the terrible things they do to our civilization, they would possibly take care to be more responsible in the future.
I have (had?) fructose malabsorption. I could digest sugar fine, but high fructose foods (HFCS, apples) not so well. My theory is being celiac my body attacked my small intestine and messed up digestion there. It could have been a gut bacteria problem, but I saw that more as a symptom of the underlying disease.
I didn't even mind that part so much. Sinus headaches were killing me. I thought I had brain cancer. Cutting out foods that trigger those has been my quest over the last 5 years and I have a pretty good handle on it now. Apparently chronic sinusitus is common in celiacs and it's pretty understudied. [1]
1. http://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/coeliac-disease-sinusiti...
Confusing I know
Generally: if it tastes like what you expect ham or bacon to taste like, or it looks like what you expect it to look like, it's cured with nitrates. Nitrates have a powerful effect on flavor and color.
So you are saying that even if I got my own raw pork belly from the butcher and learned how to cure it properly with salt, its look and taste would still be inferior to the delicious blocks of bacon I get at any chain grocery store?
You can buy salt cured bacon here: https://shop.bentonscountryham.com/ProductDetails.asp?Produc...
(1) You can look at that price tag and see why it's unlikely to be your go-to bacon,
(2) Last I checked, Benton's used a nitrate cure, and
(3) Seriously, intensely smoked food (Benton's bacon qualifies) is probably going to be more carcinogenic from the smoking compounds than from the cure. Unlike nitrate->N-nitrosamine, we're pretty clear on how smoked food causes gastric cancer.
[1]: http://applegate.com/products/organic-sunday-bacon
All of which helps explain why it's so hard to find. :)
It also goes into solid detail on the extent of (1) and (2), neither of which seem particularly groundbreaking.
There is an ongoing debate over what actually causes the observed cancer increase from eating (some) meats, and which meats it applies to. Some studies suggest the issue is red meat in general, not cured meats; others focus on a more vague "processed meat" category. (This is made even more confusing by the US habit of selling cured meats labelled as "uncured", which was touched on in the article.)
We do know that nitrites can turn into cancer causing chemicals, but we also know that they do so in low quantities, and that a lot of things in our diet contain nitrites. The "cured-labelled-as-uncured" American bacon gets its nitrites from celery, which contains a lot, yet celery doesn't seem to be causing a lot of cancer. There are some vague theories about how "nitrites in plants are special!", but so far, every attempt to study that has shown the reverse as far as I'm aware.
So in my view, the situation is confusing, but there is certainly evidence that bacon causes cancer. What I don't really buy is the idea that it's obviously the nitrites. It's great that parma hams are made without them, but there's no study (nor is there likely to ever be a study) that says "good news, eating parma hams has 0% impact on your risk of cancer". Especially since they probably do give you cancer, if all the studies showing links to red meat are borne out.
But eh. Maybe it does lower your risk. :) But I think if I was worried about it, I'd skip all bacon, given how nonexistent the evidence is to suggest nitrite-free bacon is actually healthy.
Also, the results of nitrosamines happen faster than I believe you expect from what you posted. Colon and rectal cancers have been on the rise for decades.
So, I see your point, but it's an uglier problem than I think you realize and there are some easy solutions available.
I haven't eaten meat since Jan 1 of this year as an experiment in blood panel results, body fat, and general "feel" of abandoning meats. I was already mostly dairy free (don't consume animal milks with the exception of purchased baked goods or cheeses - a few times a week at worst) for over 7 years.
If you haven't tried a shift toward a plant based diet, I would argue you have no clue. Because I didn't. Giving meat up is actually easier than things like cheese as an example.
I lost 10lbs of body fat in a month (5'11 @ 175 --> 165) and increased strength in January. I also improved all blood panel markers by a minimum of 15% (WellnessFX). But the best part is the subjective part: overall feel. I feel much better, more consistently and more often on mostly plant based. Things within my pallette have changed quickly.
Dr. Greger's "How Not to Die" has helped in some of the education and all the references to studies relating. Cooking, however is a fundamental shift from Paleo so that is one of the hardest parts you have to focus on right away. I had so many recipes I loved and became frustrated early finding alternatives. However after 2 months I'm enjoying cooking with new foods and techniques. I've picked up about a dozen new cookbooks and have learned a lot in short order.
Overall, again, I feel your statement is unfounded and I'd suggest for those interested in improving their health to try slow shifts to more plants. There's only upside and there are many studies in support of.
The final piece of it is our planet. Animals raised for meat production requires excessive energy and waste. Beyond that most of our meat supply chain is riddled with things such as E Coli (supported in many recent studies - as an example of the many: https://www.asm.org/index.php/mbiosphere/item/6219-connectin...).
TL:DR Don't miss meat after giving it up. Those who say it adds "value" without actually trying don't have basis to support their claim.
You're telling us all this without mentioning what kind of exercise regiment you're on?
Protein? Peas, quinoa, beans, nuts, tempeh, leafy greens, seeds, and the list goes on. The difference is something like quinoa is that, compared to any meat, it is calorie for calorie more nutritionally complete.
Finally why are you focused on protein to begin with? And how much protein is required for you daily? Overconsumption of has shown negative effects:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045293/
But this can be fixed by one multivitamin pill, correct?
> Finally why are you focused on protein to begin with?
My belief is that you need certain amount of protein, if you are highly engaged into sport activities. Maybe it is not very educated belief of course.
Please, speak for yourself. Some of us have enough trouble find a variety of food to eat without such restrictions. It is actually insulting to be told that radically changing my diet as an unintentional lifelong picky eater is some trivial exercise.
Furthermore it is arrogant to judge value so certainly on behalf of strangers. Put frankly, who are you to tell me what I do and don't like?
There's also mentions of "slow shifts" and similar, indicating that the change of your diet is not radical and sudden, but gradual and slow.
Picky eaters have a somewhat disease and should try to incorporate variety. Otherwise you risk black swans by eating practically the same thing all your life. Eating many ingredients is antifragile :D
Did I ever try to tell you what you should like? Nope. Get a grip.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, you may buy yourself some years with virtuous living, but you are still going to die. It's worth considering whether you want to give up all your small temporal pleasures.
Did I state longevity was my goal? No. "Temporal pleasures" are subjective. And you're conflating your tastes with mine incorrectly. I stated I ate a lot of meat, and enjoyed it. I don't miss it having cut it out. That was very surprising to me and I'm simply sharing thoughts. I also suggested if you haven't tried it, how would you know? You don't. Plain and simple.
I don't doubt his good intentions and I think he attempts to be balanced and use science to back his arguments. But he clearly starts from the position that meat is bad as I think perhaps you do. And perhaps it is. But I would prefer to see that established without prejudice.
If you have an ethical problem with eating meat then don't eat it. But I get a little tired of people proselytising as a result of becoming born again vegans.
As for curing meat. As you say meat can be dangerous to consumer due to contamination. I would rather a slightly elevated risk of cancer from moderate use of nitrate cured meats than near certain death from botulism or some other nasty. I really would like to see a safer alternative become commercially available but I don't want to be second guessing the microbial safety of my cold cuts. I rarely eat bacon but cold cured meats with salad are a relatively important part of my diet as cooking in our kitchen heats the house too much during the warmer months.
I think the big problem with meat, as with the sugar epidemic, is overconsumption. If every meat eater ate meat in moderation as part of a balanced diet there would be far less environmental impact and animal cruelty than creating a small number of vegan converts. Red meat consumption has certainly dropped in Australia though chicken has offset some of that.
I hate to break it to you, but your relationship is already over.
Thus the only guide I can trust is, how does this food make me feel when I eat it? Coca cola makes me spike then feel like shit, eggs make me feel happy and satiated, bacon and avocado too. Fried chicken makes me feel grimy and sluggish as does pasta and beer. Leafy greens make me feel amazing and make my stool less disgusting.
I can only imagine this is all that earlier humans had to go on and so I choose to listen to my body.
Also keep in mind that up to 200 years ago average life span was ~35, so cancer didn't really had time to develop.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672390/
> Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today, and the incidence of degenerative disease was 10% of ours. Their levels of physical activity and hence calorific intakes were approximately twice ours. They had relatively little access to alcohol and tobacco; and due to their correspondingly high intake of fruits, whole grains, oily fish and vegetables, they consumed levels of micro- and phytonutrients at approximately ten times the levels considered normal today.
That infant mortality was sky-high prior to the 20th century is pretty well known - I can't think of a good, detailed source for that off the top of my head. But what I can tell you, on the subject of longevity in general, is to do the following:
- Look back through the genealogical record, for you personally. "People old enough to have kids" is a good sort-of proxy for life expectancy minus infant mortality. I personally found that my ancestors regularly lived into their 70s and 80s. Very few of my ancestors died younger than 70, going back to the 1600s.
- Another good example is to look at history. Pick up Livy, for example, or someone along those lines, and see how often someone dies of non-violent causes before they've entered old age. It's pretty uncommon. When it did happen, it was usually because of a horrific plague that killed people left and right.
Basically, historically, people generally (we're talking about a huge expanse of time and different cultures here) lived pretty healthy lives. They were much more active than we were, ate fewer processed foods, and often ate very healthy foods. People didn't smoke and didn't eat much sugar. There also wasn't a lot of industry spewing carcinogens and endocrine distributors everywhere. If you lived in a peaceful area and time, in relatively sanitary condition, your odds were very good that you'd live long into old age. Even if you lived in a nasty city (and I'd call Victorian England pretty nasty) your odds weren't bad. Where things fell apart was in war and plague. And as discussed in the paper above, when people did die in old age, they tended to pretty quickly of infection-related causes.
Life expectancy has probably risen and fallen over time, depending on different historical and cultural factors. The popular model of "it's just been getting better and better over time" is not at all correct - it's no coincidence most charts begin in ~1900. The Victorian England paper is a good basis for reflection because it's clear that the medical technology of that time was not dramatically different than that available a few hundred years or even two thousand years earlier, and neither was their diet or lifestyle extraordinary, even if it was good.
You have stated in a common-sense way that ingesting huge quantities of sugar and trans-fats make you feel terrible, and ingesting leafy greens make you feel physically well; not that one should simply eat what their cravings tell them to. As sensitivities to certain foods can manifest themselves in different ways on an individual level, recommending that people pay close attention to the impact that certain foods have on their energy-levels, mood, and performance is sound advice.
0: It might happen for every post but I don't hover on my posts hitting refresh.
I realize it's a privileged position, but I'd gladly pay more for a salami/bacon that doesn't last as long to get rid of the carcinogen.
That doesn't mean preservatives must be inherently bad or carcinogenic though - e.g canned foods, dehydrated fruit, while things are lost in the process it doesn't necessarily have to make the food toxic. But when you see a 20p cake you can bet it's going to be bad for you, not just because it's sugary, but because it's 20p and therefor must have a long shelf life, and cake isn't inherently long lived.
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/why-our-bacon-better
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/whole-story/i-love-baco...
> All of the bacon we sell is made without synthetic nitrates or nitrites.
Is that the dodge mentioned in the article where they actually do use nitrates from celery instead, which are just as bad even though they're natural?
Products that claim to be "nitrate-free" are lying. They're exploiting the native nitrite/nitrate content of (extracts of) green vegetables rather than adding nitrates directly. Your body does not care about this difference, but your psychology does.
* Botulism is incredibly rare.
* Don't eat seal blubber.
* Be careful with your pruno; one jailhouse batch took accounted for the majority of cases in 2012.
To be fair I think many people have been unconsciously fed misinformation - for instance I somehow picked up the "processed food == mixed up non-specific animal parts" thing without ever looking into it or thinking much.
I'm interested.. can you remember where you picked up the botulism thing? did you live through that anti-nitrates era or do you think you might have picked it up from more modern forms echoed around the web?
You can look it up online --- in fact, you can use it as a HACCP plan for your own cured meat enterprise if you want, which is amazing --- and see where and why it requires nitrites.
I absolutely trust these people more than I trust a random British food writer who says hot dogs give people brain cancer.
As a Waitrose shopping rich person you could be sold some 'Duchy Farms organic, free-range, humanely murdered meat' and buy in to the concept much like you might buy some other deluxe product on their shelves. However, if down the pub and ordering off the menu, would you care at all about what is in the pies, sausages and bacon? It would not be the place to go full-vegan-socially-awkward, particularly if you were hungry and someone else was paying the bill.
Most meat products are quite alien to our taste - ask a small child - but, along with alcoholic drinks, coffee, tobacco and much else that is quite abhorrent at first, we learn to go along with the rest of the human tribe and go along with it. There is a social aspect to eating meat, that allegedly amazing smell of bacon isn't just about satisfying one's cravings for such food, it is also about that social experience, even if eating on one's own.
Anyone who already eats sausages/bacon/burgers in canteen style environments or after a few beers from some roadside van is already saying don't care about lots of things, so some added nitrate scare counts for nothing. We would still be eating cow-brain on toast had it not been for how tragic BSE turned out.
- red meat is classified as probably carcinogenic to humans
- processed red meat is classified as carcinogenic to humans (" there is convincing evidence that the agent causes cancer")
source - http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/
Also, "uncured" bacon is a lie; one of the main ingredients is celery powder, which contains - you guessed it - naturally occurring nitrites.
https://www.verywell.com/what-is-the-most-common-cancer-in-t...
So it's not a small chance.
https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/colorect.html
Approximately 4.3 percent of men and women will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer at some point during their lifetime, based on 2012-2014 data.
Your chance (roughly) goes from 4.3% to 5% if you eat bacon (and salumi, prosciutto, etc) regularly. Whether or not you personally consider this small or large, it seems like a pretty straightforward cost/benefit analysis.
According to the best available evidence, eating 50g per day of processed meat increases the relative risk of developing colorectal cancer by 18%. Given the prevalence and prognosis of colorectal cancer, this equates to about one premature death per 200 people as a result of eating processed meat.
Is processed meat somewhat bad for your health? Almost certainly. Is your daily bacon sandwich worth a 0.5% chance of a premature death? That's entirely your decision. I'm a vegetarian for ethical reasons, but that level of risk wouldn't faze me in the least if I really liked bacon. Factors like obesity, inactivity, smoking and alcohol use dwarf the risks posed by processed meat.
Constant fretting over small risks posed by our diet may be distracting us from clear messaging on big risks. I've heard countless people say "everything gives you cancer, so why worry about it?" or "scientists can't make their mind up about what you're supposed to eat, so I just ignore them". It isn't news that smoking, being obese or drinking too much alcohol are incredibly bad for your health, but it's a message that deserves repeating. I fear that those messages are being drowned out by a constant trickle of stories about "superfoods" and cancer risks.
The author of this article has previously made exactly this point in an article criticising the "clean eating" fad:
"When mainstream diets start to sicken people, it is unsurprising that many of us should seek other ways of eating to keep ourselves safe from harm. Our collective anxiety around diet was exacerbated by a general impression that mainstream scientific advice on diet – inflated by newspaper headlines – could not be trusted. First these so-called experts tell us to avoid fat, then sugar, and all the while people get less and less healthy. What will these “experts” say next, and why should we believe them?"
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/11/why-we-...
That is a huge number.
Compared to what?
Not to mention just in itself -- opposed to 0 people dying prematurely because of that.
So instead of 1 in 170, not eating nitrates makes it 1 in 200.
Take your pick. It's basically worse than gun violence but better than alcohol.
Didn't even read the article, if anyone can run some numbers and clarify? (genuinely curious)
To me this is an absolute non-issue. Even if the research is free of bias and error (debatable), it's a tiny chance of cancer late in life. Spend your time worrying about almost anything else (diet, exercise, avoiding drugs), etc. and it will be orders of magnitude more important.
Some people will survive beyond five years but die of cancer anyway; I didn't bother factoring this in, partly because I'm lazy, partly because I couldn't find relevant data and partly because the median age at diagnosis for colorectal cancer is 67.
https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/colorect.html
So statistically speaking eating 50g of processed meat a day reduces your life expectancy by 3.2 days: (78 years life expectancy in US - 67 median age of getting cancer - 1 year of dying from cancer) * 0.005 chance of receiving cancer * 0.18 increase of cancer probability * 365 days.
Apropos enough, this week’s episode of The People’s Pharamacy is about exactly this:
https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2018/03/01/show-1112-how-and...
To avoid natrium nitrate you can by some ecological food.
The German version of Wikipedia has a skull symbol marking it as posinous on natrium nitrate https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natriumnitrit
It's thought that disruption of biophoton communication is the mechanism by which phosphates promote cell undifferentiation, proliferation, and, eventually, cancer.
First: it is not true that the nitrates in green vegetables are entirely benign. All sodium nitrite potentially metabolizes to sodium nitrate; depending on what vegetables you consume and when you consume them, many have nitrate content; all nitrate you consume potentially metabolizes to N-nitroso compounds. People have claimed that other compounds in vegetables neutralize the formation of nitrosamines in the digestive tract; researchers have refuted that claim.
You knew you were in trouble when the article tried to make a clear dividing line between vegetables and meats, because it's not even surprising that vegetables can be carcinogenic. When cooked, potatoes, corn, flour, coffee, and peanuts all create significant amounts of acrylamide, which is also a known and potent carcinogen.
"Slow-cured, nitrate-free, artisan hams are one thing," says this article. What, exactly, does that mean? "Nitrate" and "slow-cured" are practically synonyms. Nitrates (the slow-acting form of curing salt) are what prevents the germination of botulism. Whether the ham cure uses "Prague Powder" curing salts or celery powder, the biological impact is the same --- but because people have been so alarmed about nitrosamines for so long, virtually everybody (falsely!) claims to sell "nitrate-free" product.
To a pretty good first approximation, everything delicious adds some additional exogenous risk of carcinogenesis. It may very well be that cured meats carry relatively more risk than other foods (it seems very unlikely that switching from store-brand bacon to artisanal ham will help you here). But this article, written by "British food writer" Bee Wilson, doesn't even include the word "milligram" --- but does think you should know that someone once found a correlation between hot dogs and brain cancer.
This is junk.
I think that this point is made in the article:
> It’s made with nitrates taken from celery extract, which may be natural, but produces exactly the same N-nitroso compounds in the meat. Under EU regulation, this bacon would not be allowed to be labelled “nitrate-free”.
You also say:
> prevents the germination of botulism
The article also talks about botulism, seems to claim it's overblown propaganda by the meat industry:
> Does making ham without nitrite lead to botulism? If so, it is a little strange that in the 25 years that Parma ham has been made without nitrites, there has not been a single case of botulism associated with it. Almost all the cases of botulism from preserved food – which are extremely rare – have been the result of imperfectly preserved vegetables, such as bottled green beans, peas and mushrooms. The botulism argument was a smokescreen.
Smoking, of course, introduces its own set of carcinogens.
Here is a list of all substances absolutely known to cause cancer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IARC_Group_1_carcinoge...
No, it really isn't. This is pure sensationalism. I can't stand articles which try so desperately to scare me. It makes me even less likely to follow suggestions.
Uh, no, it isn't. Does anybody even eat "a couple of rashers" of bacon per day?