Processed Meats Too Dangerous for Human Consumption

My family eats red meat once a week or so, but very little processed meat. Last fall, after saving up for it, we bought a large, upright freezer and stocked it with 1/4th of a cow. This was local, grass-fed beef and was an exciting investment for us. I was immediately impressed by the superiority of the beef's flavor and by how much less greasy it was than I expected. That was when I knew for sure we'd made the right decision to switch to fresh, grass-fed beef.

But sometimes it's nice to have a couple slices of lunch meat on a sandwich, or put pepperoni on homemade pizza. However, reading articles like this one, which I was just made aware of last week through a friend, remind me of how truly bad processed meat is for our bodies. The article begins with this startling news: "The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) has just completed a detailed review of more than 7,000 clinical studies covering links between diet and cancer. Its conclusion is rocking the health world with startling bluntness: Processed meats are too dangerous for human consumption. Consumers should stop buying and eating all processed meat products for the rest of their lives." (Italics added)

Wow. That is very direct and very clear. But the tendency sometimes is to wave off that kind of statement with, "Everything causes cancer anyway." So, lest the above statement seems too dramatic, here are some numbers for you: One study "revealed that every 50 grams of processed meat consumed daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 21 percent." Fifty grams is one serving, or about 4 slices of lunch meat. So, really not much. And that risk goes up not each year that we eat processed meat, but each day! That's hard to comprehend.

The article clarifies that not all red meat is bad for our health: "These cancer risks do not come from eating fresh, non-processed meats. They only appear in people who regularly consume processed meat products containing sodium nitrite."

The discussion of the evils of nitrates is not new to this blog (see here for previous posts on the topic), but it is something I don't always think about. And honestly, it's not something I often need to think about because we eat so little of processed meats anyway. But reading this article made me re-think even the small amount we do eat.

Please check out the article for more information on what foods contain nitrates/nitrites, how (and where) to avoid them, and why the USDA and FDA continue to allow sodium nitrite into processed foods. 

After all, knowledge + action = improved health = power.

MSG and Nitrates

Back in December I wrote a post about my pregnancy aversion to MSG. Over the last few months it has gotten easier to avoid MSG as I have learned about its many hidden forms, gotten in the habit of checking everything I buy, and not ever going out to eat.

About the same time as I figured out that MSG was my problem, I realized that nitrates and nitrites affect me similarly. (Of course, MSG is often included in items that have nitrates, so the two come together a lot.) As long as I stay away from over-processed meats, like lunch meat, sausage, and bacon this sensitivity isn't that difficult to avoid. And now that Hormel makes a few lunch meats without any preservatives, nitrites or nitrates, MSG, or artificial ingredients, I can still enjoy lunch meat on my sandwiches.

The sad thing is, when you really look into the MSG issue, you realize that while most restaurants claim not to have any MSG in their foods, almost all of them do. And you can't ask employees or even the cooks about it, because more than likely they don't know about all the hidden forms.

The Dangers of Nitrates

Lately I've been learning about nitrates and I keep being surprised by how many products have them. My family doesn't eat much processed food, obviously, but we do eat things like lunch meat and the occasional kielbasa sausage. Now what I am learning about nitrates is making me rethink even this small amount. Below is a quote from an informative article found at organicconsumers.org:

"Sodium nitrite is a dangerous, cancer-causing ingredient that has no place in the human food supply," [says nutritionist Mike Adams]. The USDA actually tried to ban sodium nitrite in the 1970's, but was preempted by the meat processing industry, which relies on the ingredient as a color fixer to make foods look more visually appealing. "The meat industry uses sodium nitrite to sell more meat products at the expense of public health," says Adams. "And this new research clearly demonstrates the link between the consumption of processed meats and cancer."