The World Health Organization has found that eating processed meats raises your risk of developing cancer and has ranked it as a group 1 carcinogen, meaning that it places in the same category as alcohol, tobacco, and arsenic. Many people seem to have misinterpreted their determination as it’s been compared to the risk of smoking cigarettes. While the evidence that eating processed meats causes cancer is as strong as the evidence that cigarettes cause cancer, that does not mean that the risk as also as high.
Smoking causing cancer has become widely known and accepted because it has been proved and there is such strong evidence to back it up. The evidence for processed meats causing cancer is just as strong as that evidence. The difference is that while smoking causes cancer in a large percentage of smokers, processed meats cause cancer in a much smaller percentage of meat eaters. So while the proof is just as solid, the chances are not nearly as high.
Even red meat has been ranked as a 2A carcinogen, meaning it’s probably carcinogenic to humans. The World Health Organization’s IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) came to the conclusion that eating 1.8 ounces of processed meat daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by a whole 18%. They determined that the amount of risk each person has for developing cancer is larger the more meat they consume.
While consumption of processed and red meat can raise your risk of cancer, the most effective ways to prevent cancer are to avoid cigarettes, maintain a healthy body weight, and avoid drinking large amounts of alcohol.
If you meats causing cancer is bad, then you’ll also be shocked to hear that human DNA has been found in many brands of hot dogs in this study. Not only is a small percentage of the samples taken from popular hot dog brands testing positive for human DNA, but many samples of vegetarian products have been found to actually contain small amounts of meat in them. Two-thirds of those samples that were found to have human DNA in them were actually vegetarian products.
While it’s been suspected for a while that red meat and processed meat are not necessarily the healthiest food to consume an excessive amount of, now there is solid proof. Not to say that vegetarianism is the solution, but being conscious of what you put into your body and how it can affect you is.