Hey guys!
Yesterday, there was a media storm about the newly released WHO report on the health risks of eating red and processed meat.
We´ve watched this media storm with interest, have downloaded and discussed this report in our team, and now we´d like to share some of our observations with you:
- Rather often, the information published in the media was too general and therefore misleading for the end-consumer (=you).
- Opinion making was unfortunately present, that is the data was not considered from a neutral point of view.
- The meat industry shrugged the report off as being of poor quality and absolutely biased.
What was this report truly about?!
- The scientists involved investigated the already published literature (=studies) that has dealt with the question if red or processed meat can cause cancer.
- They included only the best (=high quality) literature.
- It was differentiated between the intake of red meat (e.g. unprocessed mammalian muscle meat like beef, pork, veal, lamb etc., includes minced meat) and processed meat (cold cuts, smoked or cured meat, fermentated meat etc.).
- The largest body of data was found for associations of colorectal (= bowel) cancer and meat consumption. That means: NO generalization should be made that meat consumption can cause all types of cancer – this is completely wrong at the time being (but was used as a heading!)
- The consumption of processed meat holds a higher health risk than red meat, even (and already) in smaller portions per day (50g processed meat versus 100g red meat).
- For other cancers than colorectal cancer positive associations were found; that means meat-consuming people in the investigated population sample suffered more often from cancer than those who didn´t eat meat. But: An association is not the single cause of a disease! It is often often not even a cause in itself – but it contributes to the development of the disease (see also colorectal cancer)! Skipping the questionable food could therefore have remarkable and longlasting health benefits.
- The larger the available data, the more secure the result. As the researchers in charge dealt with a truly big amount of hard data, their result is reliable. That´s why they classified processed meat as a carcinogen, and placed it in the one group with arsenic and asbestos. Please keep in mind, that the link between colorectal cancer and the consumption of processed meat was the strongest, for others types of cancer these data might not be applicable.
Some general remarks:
- 50g of processed meat is less than one sausage. The consumption of 50g per day increases the risk of colorectal (=bowel) cancer by almost a fifth.
- An association is normally not the single cause of a disease, but it is linked to it and has the potential to trigger it. Meat consumptiom shows several associations with the development of cancer – reversing this result means eliminating this regular intake will have remarkable health benefits!
- When reading the report carefully, the researchers appeared as unbiased as possible, they openly claimed any potential clash of interests, and the investigation was not funded by either side of meat industry or cancer research organizations.
- The whole process of evaluating the data was observed by representatives of the meat industry.
- What is behind the meat industry´s claim that this report would be of poor quality? Probably money. It´s a giant industry and this behaviour is well-known from the tobacco industry. the categorization through the WHO is a serious threat to this industry.
What to do now?!
- Keep calm and eat with self-care and self-respect.
- Knowing about the data might make you think about your meat consumption. If you´re in the group who eats more than the treshold values of 50g for processed meat and 100g of red meat per day, it will be your very own risk. If you decide to lower your intake, there will be healths benefits waiting for you!
- If you belong to the group of non-meat-eaters anyway: relax 😉
Here´s the link to the original report: