Beyond animal suffering and destruction of the environment, here’s one more reason to put down that hot dog: cancer risk.
In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) — the cancer agency of the World Health Organization — classified processed meat as a carcinogen. It also regards red meat as a possible carcinogen.
Processed meats include hot dogs, ham, bacon, sausage, and certain deli meats. Processed means the meat has been treated for flavoring or preservation by smoking, curing, salting, or fermenting. Beef, goat, pork, and lamb are all considered red meat.
Twenty-two experts in ten countries pored over 800 studies to examine the relationship between meat consumption and cancer. They found that consuming just one portion of processed meat daily resulted in an 18-percent increase in colorectal cancer. In addition, pancreatic and prostate cancer risks increased for people who ate red meat.
In a Q&A, the World Health Organization explained what in meat makes it pose such risks: “…carcinogenic chemicals that form during meat processing include N-nitroso compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Cooking of red meat or processed meat also produces heterocyclic aromatic amines as well as other chemicals including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are also found in other foods and in air pollution.”
Some cooking methods cause meat to become more carcinogenic. High temperatures or meat touched by flames or a hot surface, such as barbecuing or pan-frying, are known to produce these harmful chemicals.
Another study by Cancer Epidemiology Markers & Prevention concluded that a “vegan diet seems to confer lower risk for overall and female-specific cancer than other dietary patterns. The lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets seem to confer protection from cancers of the gastrointestinal tract.”
Moreover, The National Center for Biotechnology studied vegan blood and found that it fights cancer eight times more efficiently than non-vegan blood.
With all the delicious food options that don’t contain meat, it’s easier than ever to improve your health, animals’ lives and the planet by going for that veggie sausage link over the meat version.
Yes nitrosamines are bad, but it has to be explained how and why they form in the excessive cooking heat of a BBQ.
Too many times invited to BBQ’s; when looking at the dirty carbon loaded grill; that’s when i become vegetarian!!!.
Nitrate is organically present in celery parsley and many green vegetables, the proof ; when you marinate beef for boeuf bourguignon with celery carrot onion and parsley; the meat turn red during cooking and it is not the wine that changes the colour; it is the fixing of the hemoglobin from the naturally leaching nitrate from those vegetable elements into the meat.
The key is to have a constant variation in your food choices and sizing. always consumed with anti oxidants present in the vegetables. Let’s not paint everything with the same brush!!! I am more worried about hydrogenated fats and saccharines that are the main issue behind Bad Cholesterol in your blood, dietary cholesterol has nothing to do with the blood cholesterol, many factual research has proved it in UK; and quickly countered by the corn and sugar lobby in the USA.
Cheers
I grew up on a small farm in Northwest Wyoming. We raised almost all our own food and provided food for many other people. It was a lot of hard but satisfying work. I understand the issues of providing plant versus an animal based food supply. I am not your average aw shucks,simple farm boy. perhaps we can talk: 857-600-8074.It is currently 5:34am. I’m up a bit late. Those cows aren’t going to milk themselves so one gets used to getting up early. Send me an email address and I will send you more of my story. My current online based business: artdeadlineslist.com. rtuh.com/resume (still incomplete).Looking forward, mainly because it is so hard to do anything about the past! I also meant to add the comment that our partly meat based diet goes back 1-3 million years if not more.
Very glad I became a vegetarian many years ago. What prompted me back then was the horrific way hideous men treated baby calves in veal factories. There was a documentary on 20/20. No way can I ever eat something that had to die. And as this finding shows , eating meat is not always good physically. As for me I miss it NOT at all.
One more thing they say causes cancer. If we listen to them Every time they say something can cause cancer we’d starve to death. Which means wed be dead anyway. So fire up those barbies and enjoy that meat.