But what are those things? And WHYYYYY BACON?! WHYYYYYY?!

Hey there, meat-lovers pizzas out there! Trace here for DNews. Cancer and bacon, two words no breakfast-lover

wants to hear, the yearning for bacon is just too strong. Processed meat has been a bane

for years… and a new study confirms what many other studies have: Red Meat is BAD (especially

when processed). Carcinogen is a word thrown around about sun exposure, Melphalan, alcoholic

beverages, Plutonium, Crystalline: in the form of Quartz or Cristobalite, Smokeless

tobaco, smoking tobacco, Leather dust, Silica Dust, wood dust… whatever a bunch of dusts…

coffee, and ALSO exposure to the little black bits on the edge of grilled meats. These are

all on a list created by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research

on Cancer. Fun fact: there are 984 things on the list; some cause cancer, some don't.

But, processed meat is now there because of its nasty tendency to cause colorectal cancer.

Maybe. Kind of. Maybe.

When we cook meats, like hot dogs, bacon or fancy steak (processed or not) we chemically

alter them. As meat cooks, the chemicals found inside of them can form heterocyclic amines

(HCAs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and advanced glycation end products (AGEs).

These compounds are fine on their own, but when we eat them, they break down and mess

with our colonic DNA causing colorectal cancer! So the World Health Org finally added these

to the list as a Group1 carcinogen, meaning it DEFINITELY causes cancer -- the thing is,

Plutonium causes a lot of cancer, bacon only causes a little. They're not equally dangerous.

But the question is, what the hell is a processed meat?

Processed red meat, is mammalian muscle meat such as beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse,

and goat which has been transformed due to "salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or

other processes to enhance flavor or improve preservation." Note, unlike some Paleo peoples will tell you,

cutting does not count as "processing." When meat is processed it is chemically altered

to increase shelf life, change the flavor, or be more stable. Unfortunately for sausage-lovers,

carcinogenic chemicals like PAHs can be created during processing, but so can n-nitroso compounds!

N-Nitroso compounds are some of the most carcinogenic things on earth, and usually result when meat

is exposed to nitrites or nitrogen oxides. We've known N-Nitrosos are carcinogens for

more than 50 years, and people don't seem to be dropping left and right, even though

we're eating more meat today than 50 years ago. The WHO said a 50g increase in processed

meat could increase cancer risk by 18 percent, but also admitted the evidence is slight.

The thing is, humans built our society on the ability to get more energy from our food,

we cook it (which adds carcinogens) and we eat red meat but our ancient human ancestors

didn't live long enough to get cancer from these things! Red meat was also added to the

WHO's list as group 2A -- which means it probably causes cancer. FYI: red meat includes pork;

don't give in to marketing. We've known for a long time meats like these increased risks

of cancer. A 28-year-long Archives of Internal Medicine study published in 2012 found people

who eat more red meat die younger from cardiovascular disease and cancers; even when adjusted for

other life factors.

So, processed meats are any meat that's been altered from its natural state with salts

or additives, and red meat it just mammalian meat; fowl not included. In the end, as people

live longer, and want to be healthier into their 70s and 80s, we have to watch what we

eat. It's a fact of life. The easiest way is to reduce processed meats in your diets,

and even having a couple of meat-free days a week will teach you to eat a variety of

things, rather than just hamburgers. Vegetarians don't rejoice too much, meat is still a great

source of B vitamins, minerals, iron and zinc! Eating it is still recommended, but just…

not as much.

If you're one of our critical thinkers out there, you're probably wondering -- as we

did -- how the heck the meat industry didn't put a kielbasa-sized kibosh on this whole

announcement, as it was sure to affect their bottom line… So how powerful is the meat

industry, anyway?

How much red meat do you eat? Do you plan to eat less?