Most of us know that bacon isn’t exactly health food, but a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) has found that processed meats like bacon, hot dogs, sausage and luncheon meat have been placed on the same cancer hit list as cigarettes.
That doesn’t mean that a side of bacon is as dangerous as smoking per say, however both processed meat and cigarettes have been proven with the same certainty to increase cancer risks. The greater the exposure, the greater the risk. Estimates suggest that 34,000 deaths a year can be attributed to a diet high in processed meat, as opposed to one million cancer deaths caused by smoking.
It doesn’t take a lot of processed meat to increase your cancer risks. The WHO report found that just 50 grams of processed meat a day (less than two slices of bacon) significantly increases the risk of developing colorectal cancer.
Red meats were also found to probably have an effect on cancer, however the effect is less certain than with processed meats.
While this doesn’t mean that your an never have a pepperoni pizza again, it does mean that you should limit processed meats (and red meat) to a maximum of one or two times a week and rely more heavily on chicken, eggs, fish and beans as a source of protein.
