Processed
meat may cause cancer, but your personal risk is probably low.
By
By now you’ve probably heard the sobering news: Red
meat may cause cancer. And bacon and other popular processed meats definitely
do, the World Health Organization says.
Does that mean we all need to quit eating processed meats — no
pun intended — cold turkey?
For nutrition-obsessed dorks like me, this pronouncement wasn’t
news: Bacon’s been suspect for decades.
Yet I still occasionally eat the
stuff, and I have a weakness for a particular variety of overpriced salami sold
at Whole Foods. (It’s great for camping trips, because it stays good outside
the fridge.)
Despite my mostly vegetarian diet, when I have bad days I head
to a favorite local restaurant and order up a hot ham sandwich with melted
cheese, homemade pickles, and whole grain mustard. It’s my comfort food. It
always hits the spot.
From the data, my occasional indulgences aren’t as bad as
smoking the occasional cigarette. As far as cancer is concerned, it’s much less
risky.
Michael Hansen, a veteran food science expert based at Consumers Union, helped me put it in perspective. When the news came out a few years back that rice has arsenic in it, he identified the obvious question: How unsafe is it?
There are two numbers researchers should look at, he explained
to me. First, there’s the increased risk to each of us as an individual.
Second, there’s the added number of cancer cases that will occur in society
more generally.
In the case of processed meats, the World Health Organization
said it increases the riskof
colorectal cancer by 18 percent. For society, this is a big deal. It means an
extra 24,000 cancer cases in
the United States each year.
For individuals, it means
that instead of a 5 percent lifetime risk of getting colorectal cancer, those
who eat processed meats have a 6 percent lifetime risk.
That might not be enough to convince you to put down the bacon.
To be sure, there are reasons to cut down on meat consumption.
Toxins tend to travel up the food chain, accumulating in the apex predator (in
this case, people). Eating low on the food chain, as a rule, is a good way to
reduce your exposure to all manner of impurities.
You might also consider the terrible treatment of the animals in
slaughterhouses and factory farms, the awful labor conditions of the humans who
work there, or the high environmental cost of producing meat.
It’s possible to mitigate some of these factors by buying meat
from a local farmer you know and trust. However, this can be expensive, so it’s
not an option for everyone.
Then there’s the issue of what you’re not eating when you eat a lot of meat.
Since you can only eat a certain amount of food per day, every time you put
bacon in your mouth, that means you’re not eating something else. Something
like vegetables.
Don’t get me wrong: Processed meats do raise your risk for cancer. But
that might not mean you have to turn your diet on its head. Although if
you do cut back on the stuff and make room for more fruits, veggies, legumes,
and whole grains, you’re only doing yourself a favor.
OtherWords
columnist Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our
Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It. OtherWords.org.