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Why are Processed Meats So Deadly?
Processed meats are those preserved by smoking, curing or salting, or the addition of chemical preservatives. This includes bacon, ham, pastrami, salami, pepperoni, hot dogs, some sausages and hamburgers (if they have been preserved with salt or chemical additives) and more.
Particularly problematic are the nitrates that are added to these meats as a preservative, coloring and flavoring. The nitrates found in processed meats are frequently converted into nitrosamines, which are clearly associated with an increased risk of certain cancers.
It's for this reason that the USDA actually requires adding ascorbic acid (vitamin C) or erythorbic acid to bacon cure, as it helps reduces the formation of nitrosamines.
Meat cooked at high temperatures, as many processed meats often are, can also contain as many as 20 different kinds of heterocyclic amines, or HCAs for short. These substances are also linked to cancer.
Dr. Katz….your article is poorly written, and as if written by a politician , not a doctor.
select a processed one.
What Canuck said.
I was thinking the same thing. What’s the point?
The author states in the very first paragraph that the studies are flawed, based on observational data, but then goes on to draw conclusions anyways.
Bleh.
The attacks are where they always are in this country on the helpless wildlife that has to try and survive with the other so called superior animals that destroy everything they touch for nothing more than self indulgence. The tipping point has no been passed. The earth has had enough of us.
You guys can have your tofu steaks and veggie dogs, I’m BBQing a filet mignon for breakfast!
Keep believing the lies you spew. Roast Beef is healthy, you must be kidding.
Another attempt to rationalize emerging evidence that the conventional dietary "wisdom" is turning out to be wrong. The evidence against saturated fat was always weak and has recently been well refuted by credible research. The idea that since muscle tissue of wild game is low in fat means that hunter-gatherers ate a low-fat diet overlooks the reality of ancient dietary practices. The fat of wild game was stored in depots, not marbled in the muscle, a pathological condition common in penned, grain-fattened ungulates. Fat was highly valued. Animals were hunted in the season when they had the most body fat. Our forebears rendered the fat from these animals and used it for most of their calories. The Inuit, an extreme example, were known to feed the meat to their dogs while consuming the fat. They ate a diet of 15% protein and 85% fat. They were free of chronic disease and there is historical evidence that they lived to a ripe old age. Similarly, the Masai, who ate blood, meat and milk, were extraordinarily fit and free of chronic disease. Their consumption of saturated fat was the highest of any known diet. They were also significantly taller than their agrarian neighbors, the Kukuyu, another indicator of superior health status. I could go on about why this article is misguided, but will end with this observation: anyone who cites "The China Study" as a credible resource is immediately suspect, IMHO.
Any kind of Corpse can not be good for you.
Your first paragraph is worth a fanning
You can still occasionally eat hot dogs and lunch meat. Just buy the ones that don’t contain MSG, Nitrites and Nitrates.
Why do most of us need all that much muscle? I don’t intend to lift weights. Eggs are good protein and enough for almost anyone.
treat it like venison?
My diet is that of a semi-vegetarian.
Can we agree on one thing, processed foods are bad, just look at the chemicals in the ingredient listing, and a good diet is comprised of a variety of foods in a small portions, of course. Then take some supplements for the lack of nutrition in the soil.
I’d be interested in correlation with exercise and total caloric intake as I believe lack of cardiovascular enhancing activity is a main problem regardless of diet–as we became a nation of couch potatoes and obesity and over-weight portions of the population climbed, heart disease and other diseases increased in per capita levels.
If you want to find a source of pastured meats, visit this website: http://www.eatwild.com
"(It) is your source for safe, healthy, natural and nutritious grass-fed beef, lamb, goats, bison, poultry, pork, dairy and other wild edibles." Only three days of grain-feeding significantly reduces the Omeaga 3 essential fatty acids from beef. Tasty, healthy grass-fed beef needs to have eaten grasses high in sugar. Beef that eat "wild grasses" will have varying quality/taste. Beef genetics is important, too. Not all grass-fed beef is desirable. Excellent information on stonebridgebeef.com.
These HP articles spinning a narrative claim with "references" remind me of the articles in weight trainer magazines etc that try to promote some expensive nutritional supplement for sale. Fake industry to take money from people.
Anyone got any antelope recipies?
The myth of red meat being linked to heart disease has been a crock for years. Only now are these fools catching up.
Good article though. Excuse me, I have to go train for my triathalon and then grill a steak for lunch.
What attacks? I see some comments and critiques, but hardly attacks. If you find the comments silly, explain why.
A recent comment noted, HP is tabloid journalism with comments. Really, HP is tabloid journalism with comments and infomercials.
It is objectionable when the infomercial is an HP sponsored and sanctioned blog, less so when embedded in comments. Commenter’s are not cloaked in the pseudo-authority of HP approval.
When advice claims substantiation in research, research design and statistical power should be considered, something beyond the grasp of most. Research can be "cherry picked"; supporting studies can be selected with no regard for design and statistical power. Evaluation of research is scientifically and statistically complicated. Ignore research claims which cannot be rigorously evaluated.
Be wary of claims of authority based on credentials. Credentials are easy to come by and maintain, and have little to do with the quality of advice.
Remaining is the bias of the blogger or commenter, particularly the commercial bias. Just as advice in Big Pharma commercials is biased and untrustworthy, advice of self claimed authorities with commercial interest should be suspect.
Before blindly accepting advice from strangers, check their web sites. See what literature, services, and products are being sold. Consider the source!
Maybe good health is something simple, intuitive, and free; a balanced and varied diet free of processed foods, a regular program of outdoor exercise, and common sense lifestyle modifications to reduce stress.
Cato – the sad fact is the british were never healthier than when they were severely rationed on meat, sugar and other thingd during World War 2. zonr sausage a day and no more or the equivalent of same.
Any useful experimental design would have to include the effects of boatloads of sugars and a monumental lack of actual physical exertion. Correlate that with your red meats.
"prevailing protein intake in the U.S. tends to be much in excess of need"
Says who? Protein is muscle chow. You want to build muscle, you need to lift heavy stuff and eat a lot of good quality protein, and red meat certainly qualifies. It also is great if you are on a diet: protein makes you feel full, and takes quite a few calories to digest. You get fat on potato chips and pasta, not roast beef.
Now excuse me, I am going to cook myself up a nice, thick, steak.
The attacks on this article are – well – silly. I rarely eat meat. It is virtually impossible to find beef from grazed animals, pork which is not raised in ways no SPCA would allow a dog to raised in and processed meat is not what it was sixty and seventy years ago. Lots of nitrates and other bad things to say nothing of the fact that if it is hotdog or an equivalent – the meat is truly gross and the fat content high and who knows what the level of salt and other chemicals are in them. I do eat largely fruit and vegetables and it saves a lot of money and feel slightly more humane. When I see an animal cut apart while it is still alive I am revolted but don’t feel guilty.
The bias of the author pervades this article.
First, it disregards the recent meta-analysis that showed no correlation between saturated fat and CHD. See:
http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Saturated-fats-not-linked-to-heart-disease-Meta-analysis
Second, it presumes that the fat content of the flesh of an animal correlates with the fat content of a meal of a human (or other predator) eating that animal. Studies in zoology and paleopathology clearly show that predators prefer to eat those portions of animals higher in fat, and may disregard other parts. In fact, eating just animal flesh from a game animal would quickly lead to the phenomenon known as "rabbit starvation."
The environmental comparison of CAFO meat to agriculture to demonize meat eating is a red herring. Pastured animal foods use significantly less resources that the grains and beans used to support a plant eating human. Also, no pesticides, or artificial fertilizers are needed, which are polluting our environment and are the likely a cause of many major chronic illnesses.
Then there is the reference to seeds, nuts, and whole grains (grass seeds). Nature has placed anti-nutrients in these plant parts to discourage large mammals like us from eating them. Plants bite back – see for example:
http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/1896-plants-bite-back.html
A discussion and references on what nature, not nutritionists, intends humans to eat can be found in "The Original Diet."
Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness.com
Wait, processed foods are bad for you? Who could have guessed such a thing? Seriously, chemically processed foods don’t have to be made from meat to be bad for you.
Speaking of meta-studies, a recent meta-study of many studies researching if there was a connection between saturated fat and heart disease found that there was no correlate between saturated fat and heart disease whatsoever.
Sorry, but Katz’s conclusion was more than a bit ridiculous:
"Red meats are, at best, less harmful; there is nothing to suggest they actually promote health. Plant foods do — for people and planet alike."
Nothing to suggest that red meats actually promote health? Nothing other than the fact that people have been eating red meats for at least 4 million years? Or nothing other than the fact that virtually every centenarian in recorded history has eaten red meats?
Most of the plant foods that we eat have only been a part of the human diet for a comparative blink of an eye in human history.
None of the environmental arguments against red meat mentioned by Katz apply to sustainably pastured meat in any way whatsoever. In fact, sustainably pastured ruminants are far more environmentally friendly than agriculture, which wipes out animal habitat, destroys biodiversity, kills the vitality of the soil, and causes extreme water runoff and soil erosion.
And what was up with Katz’s bizarre claim that antelope meat doesn’t contain any saturated fat?
"…it takes roughly seven lbs of corn to grow one pound of beef; five times as much water to grow feed grains for cattle as to grow fruits and vegetables for ourselves; and roughly ten times the acreage to raise cattle for food as to raise comparable plant food calories for direct human consumption."
While this is true, it leaves out several important considerations. First, cattle do not need to be fed grain. Remove grain and the water use equation shifts strongly toward livestock. Second, plowing up natural grassland to raise vegetable food for human consumption causes, and has caused, vastly more environmental destruction than grazing. The very fact that plowed fields produce so much more than pasture suggests that grazing is a lower-impact use of grassland. Grazing exploits natural grassland ecology to convert indigestible cellulose into food for humans.
And an unrelated evolutionary point that medical people often ignore:
"Our Stone Age proclivities do not, however, directly support a modern carnivorous bent." And our Stone Age proclivities do not lead us to a diet that reduces heart disease or diabetes, either. The "natural" human diet evolved at a time when humans lived to be about 30. There would have been no opportunity for selection against dietary habits that led to heart disease or diabetes because very few people lived long enough to get these diseases in the first place.