NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Not bacon!!!! (I only have it like twice a year, I eat almost no meat otherwise, ok I will go read the article now. : ) (hi Selena)

What about bacon with no added nitrates?

tomboy,

2x a year? Enjoy without guilt

Moderation sounds best. Even people who eat vegan or eat only organic find themselves with BC on this board. Someday they need to figure out why our bodies miss these cells that have reproduced erratically and haven't shut them down.

Just watched the ABC Nightly News report on the WHO's recommendation. You can all peel yourselves of the ceiling and step back in off the ledge now. The risk is for colorectal, not breast cancer. And here is the cold, hard statistical fact. About 8.2 million people worldwide per year get colorectal cancer. How many of those cancers are due to eating processed &/or red meat? Drum roll, please.......34,000! (Consider, too, that there are more than 7 BILLION people on earth). More perspective: a hypothetical person who doesn't eat processed or red meat has about a 5% chance of getting cancer over one's lifetime. A processed/red meat eater's lifetime risk? 6%. Get your colonoscopies as often as recommended (no polyps or diverticuli, every 10 yrs after age 50, every 3 yrs. after polyp removal) and you cut your risk even further. And I say this as the wife of someone who had a botched colonoscopy (a 1-in-2000 occurrence) but refuses to sue and still will get his done every 3 years (albeit by a different gastroenterologist). You could still get hit by a drunk driver, shot in a drive-by, fall off a mountain or have a fatal heart attack or stroke. A woman in a Chicago suburb who beat breast cancer was still murdered recently by her homicidal-maniac husband. Everybody has to die of something.

Also bear in mind that though it's generally agreed that it's the chemicals in processed meat that makes it definitely (but mildly) carcinogenic, the study did not examine why UNprocessed red meat is, in its words, “probably carcinogenic." It didn't address the question of organic grass-fed vs. commercial feedlot-raised mammal meat, farmed vs. wild (e.g. game) mammal meat, nor even mammalian meat vs. red meat from fowl (duck breast, goose, ostrich, rhea). It hypothesized that cooking methods that employ direct (i.e., contact) heat such as grilling, frying or flame-cooking are probably more carcinogenic than indirect heat methods such as microwaving, baking, or “radiant" broiling (in which the flame doesn't touch the meat). But it didn't mention the specific chemical changes, other than the charring caused by the meat's sugars caramelizing (the Maillard reaction).

Finally, remember this was NOT a controlled double-blind study (the kind that shaped how our cancers are being treated), but rather a retrospective epidemiological study that did not distinguish the red-meat eaters with otherwise healthy lifestyles from those who smoked, over-drank, and sat on their keisters most of the time. It merely showed a statistical correlation, NOT causation. We know FOR SURE that smoking or chewing tobacco and breathing asbestos particles causes lung or other epithelial cancers. That’s about it as far as absolute causation has been proven. If you smoke or chew enough tobacco, you WILL eventually get lung, throat or oral cancer. If you drink like a fish, you raise the risk of pancreatic, liver or esophageal cancer.......but cirrhosis of the liver or Hep. C will probably get you first.

Still want to cut the risk from eating the stuff? Cut back, cut down. No need to cut out. Become a pescatarian or vegetarian for ethical reasons if you wish (maximizing food resources for the world, or animal welfare), but that will have no bearing on your own breast cancer.

I'm just tired of the sensationalism in the news. Do some real research already.

Having breast cancer doesn't lower one's risk for colon cancer. As unfair as it may sound, i made come down with colon cancer someday.

As for the nitrate free bacon...... I picked some up at Trader Joe's prior to my last camping trip. You can't go camping without bacon(I think it's a law?, or maybe a commandment?). The healthier(?) version just wasn't worth it

. With Downdog's explanation, I'll never make the same mistake again

only the real mccoy for camping trips from now on.

Some genetic syndromes do increase risk for both colon cancer and breast cancer, such as CHEK2, but I can't imagine that has a whole lot to do with bacon.

coraleliz: yes, it is a law that you must bring bacon when you go camping. If you can find it, I recommend Coleman Natural bacon. Yummy!!

Well, I've been a pescetarian (only meat I consume is a little fish) since I was 13 (my personal rule of thumb is "don't eat anything you wouldn't hit over the head yourself"), and I got BC at 48. Then again, my mother gave me a bologna sandwich every day for lunch when I was in 1st grade! So, you never know...lol!

ChiSandy, very interesting post. Where did you find those figures? I read a critique of the WHO report that they don't provide enough context on relative risk. They just throw it in the carcinogen pile and you have to figure it out yourself. I wish they would create a site where you could plug in the carcinogen and it would show you the additional cancers for high, med. and low use or exposure per every 10,000 users. That way you could figure out what is really worth avoiding. You also raise an interesting point about cooking methods. It could be the heterocyclic amines that are produced when cooking meat at high heat that causes much of the cancer. But you have HCA's in fish and chicken cooked that way, too. Hard to separate it all out.

Fallleaves, I got my figures both from Dr. Besser's (ABC's medical reporter) analysis of the WHO story on the Oct. 26 ABC World News Tonight, as well as a FAQ sidebar about the report in the NYTimes.

Yesterday I was in Whole Paycheck (kind of relieved that my son had eaten my last portion of leftover ribeye, so I bought some jerk chicken), and noticed that the butcher was looking sort of bummed out. I asked him what was the matter, and he griped that he hadn't sold any meat since he went on duty a couple of hours before. I started reading the labels in the meat case and bought some nitrate-free bacon (partly to make him feel better, partly because I had run out of bacon).

Nonetheless, I had anchovy pizza for dinner. (Now they're gonna tell us processed fish causes cancer). Meanwhile, that story has resurrected a pesky old earworm: Joe Jackson’s “Everything Gives You Cancer.” And Warren Zevon’s third-from-last album “Life’ll Kill Ya.” (At the very least, it’s a preexisting condition).

mmmmmmm bacon

Okay who's Warren Zevon. What decade did I miss?

He is most famous for Werewolves of London,, but that is far from his best song. And he actually didn't really like the song.

I love the Spanish guitar on Carmelita,,, and Keep Me in Your Heart is a beautiful song. He was a really talented guy,, wrote all his songs, played guitar and piano,, his music ranged from hard rock to ballads. And the lyrics to Life'll Kill You,,,, are just great. Linda Ronstadt had a hit with Poor Poor Pitiful Me,, and that is one of Warren's songs,, on his first album. Yes, I'm a huge fan.

When he was dying, he told his ex-wife to write his bio,,, "warts and all",, and she did. It's a great read. Gives you an inside on the rock music world in the 70's and 80's. The book is called: "I'll sleep when I'm dead" by Crystal Zevon. That is the title of one of his songs too.

My first thought was, "Mmmm . . . bacon. I think I'll go have some bacon and high fat dairy."

Belatedly, the WHO has issued a clarification. To access a MedScape article re same without registration, google the title:

WHO Clarifies Processed Meat/Cancer Link After 'Bacon-gate'

See also,

WHO FAQ: http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/

BarredOwl