I suppose so, earlier than I want, anyway!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21682779
I'm not sure I fully understand this. It's not as if processed meat like bacon is some new evil visited upon us by twin-yacht sailing magnates; we've been preserving food like this for millennia. We've been eating sausages for centuries.
My salt intake is, I think, below HMG's guidelines on average, and the bacon sandwich I had last week was my second this year. Back bacon, not streaky.
What about other countries? The Germans eat preserved meats in quite some quantity; the Mediterranean countries have lots of their own sausages, all preserved.
What specifically I don't understand and would like some science bod to explain, is what is the difference between my buying a chilled pie in Sainsbury's and my going to bother of making one myself from scratch. I'd still use salt to some extent.
I am now a confused eater. And no, I'm not going veggie.
I think that in a nutshell, when we were preserving meat 100+ years ago the life expectancy was down in the late 50s at best.
As MS is disease that occurs for the most part in middle-age, most of those people eating preserved meat 100+ years ago would have been dead anyway before they had chance to develop MS in the first place!
EDIT - I had assumed it was this article you were referring to!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21685022
Last edited by j0hnbarker; 7th March 2013 at 15:02.
There is a related article which I submit in the interests of balance.
Mike.
What's bad? Salt, fat, sugar, caffeine, meat, shellfish, eggs, poultry, dairy, bla bla bla.
I'll die when I die, in the meantime I'm eating the lot!
Just had a Spicy Italian at Subway. A coronary on a bun if ever there was one. Living on the edge, lads.... :)
I know a couple of people who refuse to use salt in their food, just in case. I feel so sorry for them.
I don't think any food is worth sacrificing your life for. Or even a limb for. Or even any notable reduction in your quality of life. Live to eat or eat to live?
But go ahead and explain to your kids that daddy is going to die because he felt eating crap was more important to him than being around to see them grow up.
I don't know how they've done their study and TBH I'm not interested but I'm willing to bet people who eat lots of bacon tend to also eat plenty of sausages, fried eggs, black pudding and fried bread etc. ...and in pre-ban days, if my memory of greasy spoons is correct, smoke about twenty fags while they are doing so...
Firstly, any diet science news needs to be taken with a pinch of salt (chortle). Look at Ben Goldacre's blogs if you want to see how much nonsense is spouted.
They also happily baffle with stats. If you read the detail, processed meat may account for a 3% increase in early death. Out of 1000 people, 1 in 17 died, so 59 people. This may go down to 57 people if they all ate less bacon. So yes, there is "more" risk. But even then they "showed people who ate a lot of processed meat were also more likely to smoke, be obese and have other behaviours known to damage health". I suspect the paper itself will show that the processed meat element is main driver when accounting for all the other things.
Cancer incidence rates in the Uk are about the same as the EU average. Processed meat consumption is usually associated with bowel cancer- see graph below. perhaps surprisingly, the Uks slightly below average here. Based on my own unscientific view when touristing, Spanish and German love of sausages is evident here, as is Denmarks Bacon-economy (data from Cancer Research).
(happy to be corrected by any health professionals if any of the above is incorrect)
You forgot to mention pussy Dave?!!!!!!Originally Posted by GraniteQuarry
Good for you. But it's not only about you. The point they were trying to make is that half the world's grain feeds the world's cattle population. In other words, instead of feeding the world, it feeds the obese Western world. Then they're the environmental cost of keeping all that cattle. And shipping all the meat from Brazil all the way to your burger. Plus many of those people who claim that they'll "die when they die" seem to have a sudden and dramatic change of heart (boom, boom) when it's a reality and they're surrounded by their tearful family. And, much as I'm happy for you to die, don't make me pay for it. The NHS is creaking under the weight of people who point blank refuse to take any preventative medicine.
Very much this. All this research shows is that there may be a correlation between large-scale consumption of processed meat and increased risk of earlier death - it doesn't show a causative link and (as others have said) it ignores other potentially relevant lifestyle factors. I strongly suspect you can offset any risk by eating a varied diet with plenty of fruit and veg, but that's hardly going to garner as many headlines as "OMG! Bacon WILL KILL YOU!!!1!".
I can see you took your nobber pill this morning.
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