Processed Meat and Cancer

According to the Surgeon General, living with a smoker increases your risk of lung cancer by 15%. So, breathing secondhand smoke day in and day out increases risk of lung cancer almost as much as eating a serving of processed meat day in and day out increases your risk of colorectal cancer.

Just how dangerous is meat? The relative risk of colorectal cancer was 18% for every 50 grams a day. Okay, so what exactly does that mean? Well, the 50 grams is about 1 hot dog or 2 breakfast links or 2 slices of Canadian bacon or ham. So, a daily sandwich with 1-2 slices of bologna would increase your colorectal cancer risk by 18%.

So, if you don't smoke, colon and rectal cancer may be your greatest cancer nemesis, but we can drop the risk of getting it by about a fifth with a single dietary tweak: cutting a serving of processed meat out of our daily diet.

Eating processed meat causes colorectal cancer, cancers of the colon or rectum—the second most deadly cancer worldwide after lung cancer, which is caused largely from smoking.

Processed meat was placed as a group 1 carcinogen, which is the highest level of certainty, meaning that according to the best available evidence, the consumption of processed meat causes cancer. So, that means foods like bacon cause cancer; ham, hot dogs, breakfast links, lunch meat cause cancer.

And it's not just colon and rectal cancer, if you look at the science since the IARC decision was published, processed meat may also increase the risk of prostate cancer, breast cancer, and pancreatic cancer.

New York City is leading the way, passing legislation to ban processed meats from school meals. What a concept—not giving our kids carcinogens.