Processed meats are a major food product in the American food industry. They  are eaten in most major sports arenas in American and are greatly consumed on many American holidays.  But it doesn’t stop there, these foods are eaten on a regular basis in our everyday lives.  The advent of process meats have made the food industry countless amount of money, and it has made the American eating experience much more enjoyable.  But there is a major downside to this processed meat, it has also caused American’s to become much sicker and more fat.  Let’s get into more detailed about these meats and how to control it.

                                                    What is Processed Meat

Processed meats are meats that are preserved by smoking, salting, curing or adding chemical preservatives.  This is of great use to the food industry because it gives a much longer shelf life to these foods, and it gives it a tasteful flavor, examples of processed meats are bacon, hotdogs, deli turkey, bbq, sausage, jerky, etc.

Why it is bad

The reason why processed meat is bad is because it has been linked to cancer, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.  The World Health Organization (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) made an announcement that processed meat is “carcinogenic to humans”.  Processed meat consumption is linked to stomach cancer and red meat consumption is linked with pancreatic and prostate cancer.  They estimate 50 grams of processed meat consumed daily is associated with 18% increased colorectal cancer risk.   Cooking food on high temperature, like cooking meats over a flame, like barbecuing, pan-frying, grilling, etc can also produce carcinogenic chemicals. Cooking meat in this type of way makes the meat processed, because the smoke adds carcinogenic chemicals to the meat. Research is showing that every decade the number of people getting cancer under the age of 50 has increased. One of the major reasons for this is the continual overconsumption of process food, and process meats are a major part of that.

How to Avoid This

In order to avoid all the risk from eating process meat, you need to stop eating process meat. I know that, some of these meats are engrained in the American culture, but you should be able to cut 90% of this food out of your diet. You should cut 100% of this food out of your daily diet, but you can eat it sparingly, like during holidays, like the 4th of July, or Labor day.