Should you eat Processed Meat?-by Dr Harold Gunatillake

Transcript:
Covid-19 outbreaks at meat processing plants in US kept quiet.
By reading this captioned article, I thought I should talk about processed meat. A chicken processing facility in western North Carolina reportedly underwent widespread testing for Covid-19 in early June.
On 8 June, the health department for Burke County, where the Case Farms facility is located, reported 136 new Covid cases, a 25% increase in its total caseload. Yet neither the company, county officials nor the North Carolina department of health and human services would
confirm whether those cases were connected to Case Farms. Workers at the plant were scared. Several employees had already tested positive and the company, Case Farms – which has been repeatedly condemned for animal treatment and workers’ rights violations – was not providing proper protective equipment. What is processed meat?
Let us first understand what processed meat means in terms of unprocessed meats. Processed meat is a meat that has been treated in some way to preserve or flavor it through adding salt, curing, fermenting, and smoking. Fermenting of non-meat products do not give such health problems due to non-existence of pathogenic bacteria in the non-meat product to be fermented, but in a way benefit through the gut microbiota. On the same token, fermentation or adding salt-cured, to preserve the meat as was done before the refrigerators were invented, were highly effective at keeping the pathogenic bacteria and fungi from growing and eventually spoiling the foods.
For years and years, people had salted their meat to preserve it by removing moisture and making the meat uninhabitable for disease causing germs.
People began to find out that salt dug from certain soils, contained nitrates, and these chemicals turned the meat a pleasant pink color, and gave a palatable flavor that became so popular.

For instance, fermented sausages are prepared by stuffing casings with ground meat and fat inoculated with an acidifying bacterial starter culture or allowing natural contaminant fermenting organisms to grow. Fermentation also helps the added bacteria within to reduce
the level of those cancer-causing chemicals. So, sausages become unhealthy through the added fat and acidification through bacterial
cultures. Back in 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified processed meat as a carcinogen, which is just what it sounds like — something that causes cancer — because these foods have been shown to raise the risk of
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colon cancer and potentially other forms of cancer. There have also been studies linking processed meats to a higher risk of heart disease and diabetes. “The current evidence suggests the higher intake of processed meat, the higher the risk of chronic diseases and mortality,” says Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Eating a piece of processed meat infrequently cause no issues, but those who eat on most days of the week could get into chronic ill-health situations. Earlier, the World Health Organization and International Agency for Research on Cancer declared that consumption of both red and processed meats increased the risk for colorectal cancer by up to18 per cent. These studies are based on mice that showed a meat preservative, nitrite, caused cancer through the formation of a carcinogenic molecule, nitrosamine. The results were not entirely conclusive but that didn’t stop the push to reduce the level of nitrites in processed meats. But subsequently in the US, regulations were put into place to ensure the concentration of these chemicals was reduced to what was believed to be safe levels. In addition to the nitrites and nitrosamine, carcinogenic chemicals like heterocyclic aromatic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons seem to be carcinogenic. These chemicals are formed in the processing and cooking of meats, particularly if high temperatures are used. Studies have revealed that eating processed meat results in 67% increase in pancreatic cancer risk. Research done in the University of Hawaii following nearly 200,000 men and women
for seven years has revealed. According to lead study author Ute Nothings, people who consumed the most processed meats (hot dogs and sausage) showed a 67% increased risk of pancreatic cancer over those who consumed little or no meat products.
The culprit for this is due to the widespread use of carcinogenic precursor ingredient known as sodium nitrite for food processing.
Nearly all processed meats are made using sodium nitrite, which includes sausages, hot dogs, bacon, lunch meat, meats in canned soup products among others.
Leukemia is the other common cancer that skyrocketed by 700% following the consumption of hot dogs.
Smoking is a well-known source of food contaminated caused by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Epidemiological studies indicate that there is a link between cancer of the intestinal tract and the frequent intake of smoked foods. Grilling and smoking processes give meats a charred appearance and a smoky flavor. This generates some potentially cancer-causing compounds in the food. Charred, blackened areas
of the meat and well-done meat contain heterocyclic aromatic amines that can cause cancer when eaten frequently.
Cooking meats over a flame is linked to cancer. Combusting wood, gas or charcoal emits chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as in other processing processes of meat mentioned earlier.
Exposure to these polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons is known to cause skin cancer, liver, stomach, and several other types of cancer in lab animals.
Grilling meats is an American tradition, but it is not the healthiest thing to do. A growing body of research suggests that cooking meats over a flame is linked to cancer due to the formation of two kinds of compounds- polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heterocyclic amines, that get generated when food, especially meat, is cooked on a grill. Epidemiologists found that there was a connection between the consumption of smoked foods and stomach cancer in the 1960s.
Japan, Russia, and Eastern Europe, where smoking is a popular way to preserve meat and fish, became laboratories for gastric cancer research. Newer studies suggest that eating smoked meats may lead to cancer even outside the gastrointestinal tract. A 2012 study, for
example, linked smoked meat consumption with breast cancer. In grilling and smoking the heat levels and cooking times are different. Grilling is typically done over higher heat for a relatively short time. Smoking uses very low heat over the course of anywhere from one hour to several weeks. Grilling, Barbecuing, and smoking differences.
Grilling means cooking over a fire, hot and fast. Barbecue means low and slow, and smoking means cooking something with smoke (also low and slow).
All these cooking methods at high temperatures cause heterocyclic amines to form. These heterocyclic amines can damage a person’s genes, raising the risk foe stomach and colorectal cancers.
In conclusion, if you are a meat eater, avoid eating processed meats, but go for unprocessed red meat, and that too sparingly. Red meat refers to all mammalian muscle meat, including beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse, and goat.
There is an association between red meat eating and development of Colo-rectal cancer, and there are no safe levels.
Hope this video talk was useful.
Stay safe, logged in, and Goodbye for now.

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