71–80 of 106 posts
Basically: Don't eat anything because it will give you cancer. I've been living by that rule for about 15 minutes now, but I'm starting to get hungry.
Ok, so "processed" meats are bad... but what's the "processing" that makes them bad?
"Processed meat refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation"
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I always thought that raw tobacco while not good for you, is not nearly as bad as cigarettes. It's all the other crap cigarette companies put in there that really makes it bad for you. So if you're going to smoke, make sure it's cuban cigars all the way ;)
That and you don't inhale cigar/pipe tobacco plus for whatever reason they don't appear to be addictive in the same way cigarettes are. In an ideal world I wish all tobacco wasn't lumped together with cigarettes because while I'm sure smoking a pipe/cigar has its risks my impression is those risks are no where as bad as with cigarettes. Unfortunately I've never been able to find any real studies on cigars/pipes in is…
It's not hard to find studies with good data; e.g., http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/92/4/333.full. Note that the NIH refuses to answer this question (viz. http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/to...) because they have an absolutist agenda that's not served by talking about differential risks. But the data's out there and you can readily determine the specific risks for yourself. Whether you think it's "much better" than cigarettes is up to you. The data's pretty compelling, though; I wouldn't smoke anything on a regular or frequent basis.
Basically: Don't eat anything because it will give you cancer. I've been living by that rule for about 15 minutes now, but I'm starting to get hungry.
I hear this all the time whenever I say anything about anything contributing to cancer. People use the excuse "Everything gives you cancer, so who cares?" No, not everything gives you cancer. Only things that give you cancer, give you cancer. Lots of foods have anti-cancer properties. Basically, the more natural the food is, the more likely it will be to prevent or even treat cancer. Now when I say treat cancer, I am…
Natural = less carcinogenic is not always true. E.g. peanuts with fungicide are way less likely to give you cancer than peanuts in their natural state. Also, saparilla has almost been completely removed from the diet due to perceived cancer risk.
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Nope. The nitrates themselves aren't the issue. It's the cooking that's the issue because the nitrates convert to nitrosomenes under high heat. If nitrates were the issue, then we should stop eating celery because that's where the nitrates in processed meats come from, celery juice.
I'm pretty sure the concentration of nitrates is way smaller in a raw celery (as in taken from your garden) than what they actually put on meat.
Anyone have a good source for articles that eschew the political commentary in favor of just presenting the study findings in a concise summary? Does anyone actually care that the global lobbyists for meat don't agree that meat is a carcinogen (or that any lobbyists against meat would care that it is)?
This is the plight of today's journalism. Students are taught to find both sides of the issue and treat them equally, despite the fact that one side has a clear conflict of interest.
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Well, apparently wood fires aren't great for you, so unless you're roasting it over a gas flame, probably fairly high: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-fireplace-delusion
I remember when that article first came out. As I note elsewhere, the fundamental flaw in his logic is thinking, 'if something is worse than tobacco smoke, then it must be banned!' My own thought is, 'if tobacco smoke is less bad than wood smoke, then it must not be banned!' A world without wood smoke would be a poorer, sadder, less pleasant-smelling world. Yes, it's a pollutant. Yes, it's carcinogenic. But it's one…
It would also be a world without trees, because that's the only way to avoid ever breathing wood smoke. Forest fires are a natural phenomenon and there is no known way of entirely preventing them.
It's important to understand what "increased risk" means. From the linked article: > The IARC’s experts concluded that each 50-gram (1.8-ounce) portion of processed meat eaten daily increased the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. From a related article: > To put this in perspective, the lifetime risk of colon cancer is 5 percent. If you have a hot dog every day, your risk goes to 6 percent. http://www.cbsnews.com/new…
It's important to understand what "increased risk" means. From the linked article: > The IARC’s experts concluded that each 50-gram (1.8-ounce) portion of processed meat eaten daily increased the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. From a related article: > To put this in perspective, the lifetime risk of colon cancer is 5 percent. If you have a hot dog every day, your risk goes to 6 percent. http://www.cbsnews.com/new…
Good point, many of the health scares we have can be appropriately rationalized by examining it this way. The impact on socialized medicine is still significant when you consider an additional 1% of colon cancer cases in the population.