Bowel cancer risk story

[Gilli]

Here we go again. Eating more than 21g of red meat or processed meat a day will cause bowel cancer, if you believe today's story. Who, in any normal circumstances, would eat 21g of meat? Such a very precise measure from some epidemiological evidence!!

here is the link

. . . and I have just learnt that the author of the article may be one of the panel who created the eat badly plate. Enough said perhaps!!

[Mamie]

Just been watching this “news” article. My first thought was that they are trying to scare us into submission.

[ChristineJ]

21g is 0.74ozs

Someone, somewhere has the figures wrong, probably left off a 0

250g is 8.8ozs

I can never get my head around a portion of veg as being 80g, why not 100g would make life much easier for those who 'need' to weigh and count.

A portion is 2 broccoli spears or 4 heaped tablespoons of cooked kale, spinach, spring greens or green beans. In the good ole days a tablespoon was a serving spoon now a tablespoon is 15ml size.

A tablespoon is a unit of measure equal to 1/16 cup, 3 teaspoons, or 1/2 fluid ounce in the USA. It is either approximately or (in some countries) exactly equal to 15 ml.

Thankfully we no longer have to worry about such trifles, (a thing of little value or importance, not the sherry trifle).

[roseymary]

Well we'll make a great study group in a few years time - be interesting to see the incidence of bowel cancer in long term real foodies who eat bacon. No hope for me as I eat it pretty well every day.

[Christelle]

And off course there was nothing else in these peoples diets that could have caused the issue.
They all only had an amount of bacon and red meat daily and nothing else the entire day for years and that is why they can say with absolute confidence that the red / processed meat caused the cancer

Bull!

[Sarah(sjc)]

I'm not worried about red meat remotely, however, it does concern me that OH lives mostly on processed meat - his lunch consists of Serrano ham, salami, Spam and other cured meats, plus an awful lot of raw veg with no dressing (weirdo). Dinner tends to be sausages or other processed stuff half of the week. His favourite meal is sausages with baked beans and potato waffles.... I do try to get unprocessed stuff into him occasionally, but he can be quite hard work, though he assures me he'll eat anything.... I think we all like processed meats such as bacon, ham, good salamis and so on, but I don't think many of us live on them, and I do worry about it.

Anyway he listened to the news this morning, and there was also an item about whole grains protecting against bowel cancer - so he has decided that wholegrain bacon sandwiches are the way forward!!

[MrJDW]

With a lot of processed meat, I'm not even sure I can see anything to worry about. Take spam - apparently the 6 ingredients are pork, salt, water, potato starch, sugar and sodium nitrite. The study currently under discussion apparently makes the point that the nitrites are not to blame. So what is? Can potato starch be that sinister? If it's the sugar, why aren't they associating cornflakes with bowel cancer? While I don't like to see sugar in meat, it's a small quantity compared to say breakfast cereal.

With cured meat, its more baffling still - Serrano ham is nearly always just pork, salt and nitrites.

So I'm curious what worries you about your husband's consumption of processed and cured meat. It crosses my mind too, because I often fall back on Parma ham or salami for a quick low carb lunch when I'm at work. But logically, if we agree that meat per se isn't a problem, where is the cause for concern?

[Stephen B]

I thought it was the nitrates. I know these occur in veggies as well but when cooked - esp browned, produce nitrosamines* which are apparently "known" carcinogens.

Anyway, it still doesn't stop me eating sausages and bacon. Just not every day.

* I think that's what they're called.

[MrJDW]

I thought it was the nitrates. I know these occur in veggies as well but when cooked - esp browned, produce nitrosamines* which are apparently "known" carcinogens.

Anyway, it still doesn't stop me eating sausages and bacon. Just not every day.

* I think that's what they're called.

In the linked article, it states that the authors found very little difference between red and processed meat, even though the latter contains nitrites.

[Hugh Mannity]

Here's a link to Professor Tim Key, one of the co-authors of the study: http://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/...ssor-tim-key-0

He seems to be a member of the veggie police