Bacon and ham sold in the UK should carry cigarette-style labels warning that chemicals in them cause bowel cancer, scientists say.
Their demand comes as they criticise successive British governments for doing “virtually nothing” to reduce the risk from nitrites in the decade since they were found to definitely cause cancer.
Saturday marks a decade since the World Health Organization in October 2015 declared processed meat declared processed meat to be carcinogenic to humans, putting it in the same category as tobacco and asbestos.
I’ll copy some of the answers from the WHO Q&A linked in the post:
Processed meat was classified in the same category as tobacco and asbestos, does that mean they’re equally carcinogenic?
No, processed meat has been classified in the same category as causes of cancer such as tobacco smoking and asbestos (IARC Group 1, carcinogenic to humans), but this does NOT mean that they are all equally dangerous. The IARC classifications describe the strength of the scientific evidence about an agent being a cause of cancer, rather than assessing the level of risk.
How many cancer cases per year?
According to the most recent estimates by the Global Burden of Disease Project, an independent academic research organization, about 34 000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are attributable to diets high in processed meat.
Eating red meat has not yet been established as a cause of cancer. However, if the reported associations were proven to be causal, the Global Burden of Disease Project has estimated that diets high in red meat could be responsible for 50 000 cancer deaths per year worldwide.
These numbers contrast with about 1 million cancer deaths per year globally due to tobacco smoking, 600 000 per year due to alcohol consumption, and more than 200 000 per year due to air pollution.
How much is the risk of cancer increased?
The consumption of processed meat was associated with small increases in the risk of cancer in the studies reviewed. In those studies, the risk generally increased with the amount of meat consumed. An analysis of data from 10 studies estimated that every 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by about 18%.
The cancer risk related to the consumption of red meat is more difficult to estimate because the evidence that red meat causes cancer is not as strong. However, if the association of red meat and colorectal cancer were proven to be causal, data from the same studies suggest that the risk of colorectal cancer could increase by 17% for every 100 gram portion of red meat eaten daily.
278g a day equals 100% cancer im fked thats less than a pound ive eaten that much bacon or ham in a sitting so many times
I don’t think that’s how that math works but sure
Is the UK going to start putting cancer labels on Gin, Scotch Whisky, ale and cider? Because alcohol is not just a proven carcinogen but also toxic to a number of organs and a huge public health problem. It is a much, much larger health problem than bacon. The anti-meat lobby is extremely passionate about their cause. They have some strong arguments about the ethics of factory farming and the environmental impacts but it does make any proposal like this suspect because you just know that some of the proponents are more concerned about the ethics of meat eating than the health impacts.
In the UK (not sure about anywhere else) you can buy bacon without Nitrates. ‘Naked Bacon’ is in sainsburys, tesco, etc. Been buying it for years.
i want the nitrates please, it tastes hell of a lot better.
No one is taking nitrates away from you.
forgot the /s
I’ve gotten pizza with “uncured” bacon, ham, or sausage before. I’m not sure if the meat has no flavor or if it was the pizza tha had no flavor.
However I expect the pizza itself was worse for me than those specific ingredients
Because My grandfather cures meats without nitrates and it just tastes as good
At one point I looked into making jerky. It’s reasonable for people to do their own.
The big question is whether to use curing salts. They’re necessary if you want to be shelf stable. If you don’t use them, you need to refrigerate your jerky and it has limited shelf life, like any other food. However in that scenario, you have the advantage of fresher ingredients with a quality of your selection that may make up for it.
You don’t get that from store bought uncured meat
yeah my grandfather uses somthing else for curing his meats. he used to use curing salts but he stopped using that after the doctor told him to stop consuming so much nitrates and tbh it tastes the same to me but i know that it needs to be vaccumed packed so it doesnt spoil, and in the fridge, but thats a better trade off for nitrates.
Noted, thank you
I mean … They cause cancer. We literally know they do. It should at least be fucking STATED. Like come the fuck on
Wait what… goddamn it.
Who cares anymore, life is so depressing and the future so bleak that it doesn’t matter. By the time the average person will get cancer from bacon we’ll be dead from fascism.
That’s the attitude! 😁👍
dude you need to talk to someone, there’s no fascism anywhere. If you living like this day to day it must feel horrible. sorry its like that for you.
Wow, I had no idea there was no fascism anywhere! Thanks!
is there? please correct me if im wrong, i cant know everything.
Removed by mod
thanks. reported
What, so the mods can upvote me too? Bring that 4chan attitude and this is what you invite. Don’t be such a ❄️
4chan wtf.
What are you reporting him for? Stating the obvious?
for A) using a derogatory word for people with autisum and B) trying to use said word to insult me for no good reason.
As someone with Autism, kindly shut up
as someone with a child who has severe autism, no, i wont.
Severe autism huh? Good for you buddy, good for you.
Just because you don’t live under a tyrannical government doesn’t mean others don’t as well.
i agree there is tyrannical governments, like Afghanistan with the Taliban and China with the commies in power, but im not aware of any fascist governments right now unless im wrong which i might be?
Oh maybe just a small country with little influence in the world called the United States of America. Go ahead an try to tell me there’s no fascism here
oh no i don’t think its fascist that is a reach, but i mean the US has always been messed up so its on brand.
wake up and smell the nitrites
WARNING: Bacon contains chemicals known to the UK Government to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
So it’s fine if I just don’t eat the bacon in the UK? Then I am safe!
If you eat in France that’s fine
put the cancer warnings, like smoking people will still consume it.
A bunch of the stuff I buy has CA cancer warnings on it. When you start putting the warnings on common things, it makes the warnings meaningless…
Do any of the things I buy have a notable chance to cause caner? I have no fucking clue, because everything causes cancer in California.
That’s something I’ve noticed too. There’s not really any information about what parts of something to avoid or what the risk is or how you’d come into contact with it, but I remember seeing it everywhere when I lived there too, and I was like
“Everything in California including California is known to the state of California to cause cancer and reproductive harm.”
I’m not saying it shouldn’t be there at all, but at least wish it was a bit more like Material Safety Data Sheets that gives a bit more understanding to what you’re getting into by interacting with various things.
Let me ask for fun, does toothpaste have a warning?
You know, I can’t remember any toothpaste with that warning. So, win one for us I guess! ;p
damm, i was hoping for radium toothpaste in califorina.
then again the warning would probably be so tiny we wouldn’t even be able to read it
Imagine brushing your teeth with a ‘may cause cancer’ warning. You think people would even care or just ignore it? ignorance is bliss is real
id still do it. mabye my teeth would glow.
Does that come with superpowers? I’d be brushing twice a day
no it just makes your teeth glow, but it also makes your bones brittle
so glow teeth are guaranteed? might be worth it
Yeah but imagine having to explain to your daughter at breakfast, “Daddy, what’s that on the label? What’s cancer?”
“Don’t worry about it, honey. This is just more government bullshit, like with COVID and Brexit. The Muslims are trying to make eating pork illegal. Have an extra portion. Don’t let them tell you what to do.”
This is just more government bullshit
Just like the California cancer label that is on everything, if you put this label on common shit like bacon, then yes, “it’s just more government bullshit” is exactly how the vast majority of people will treat it.
I’ve seen the “California cancer label” line get tossed around. And its beginning to sound a lot like the “McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit” line, which was - itself - a dishonest mischaracterization of a severe injury caused by corporate neglect.
I’d say it cuts both ways. If you label everything “hazardous”, you’re absolutely right. The term loses all meaning. But, at the same time, if we live in a marketplace where everything is hazardous then the theory “we’ll just put a label on it and let the consumer decide” of patriarchal libertarianism falls apart. What is supposed to be informative becomes little more than marketing material.
The real problem is industrial. Mass production of stuff that delivers a short-term jolt of pleasure at a long term health cost, because the manufacturers consider it more profitable than releasing products with a shorter shelf life or a lower addictive quality or a more expensive production cost.
Oops, now everything needs a label, because the folks producing this shit don’t care that all their products are horrible.
🤮
Makes sense, but I wonder if hiding it just makes people less aware overall Probably not a conversation for your child at breakfast though
I’m telling you now, if they do this, with the current political climate, people will goto farms that don’t use “woke” labeling (god I hate that word)
This got me wondering: If bananas are radioactive, and radiation can mutate cells and cause cancer… Can bananas cause cancer? 🤔
It’s theoretically possible, some experts think no level of radiation is “safe”. Yet, it’s so improbable that the risk of developing cancer from a single banana is indistinguishable from background noise. You get a far higher dose of radiation just from living on earth.
This fun infographic from xkcd shows a comparison of doses, and just how low a banana ranks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose#/media/File:Radiation_Dose_Chart_by_Xkcd.png
It would have to be the “perfect shot” of a particle hitting a cell to cause DNA damage that wasn’t repairable. And you would need to be extremely immunocompromised.
If you were in such a position to get cancer from eating a single banana, you would likely already get it from living life.
Perhaps, but the fiber cleans that bacon sandwich out of your colon quicker.
Well I just looked it up. Looks like nitrites are in salad. So its official, salad causes cancer. I fucking knew it. So we are going to put cigarrette style warnings on salad now, right?
Foods High in Nitrates
Nitrates are naturally occurring compounds found in various foods, particularly vegetables. They can also be added to certain processed foods. Here’s a breakdown of foods that contain nitrates:
Natural Sources of Nitrates
The majority of dietary nitrates come from vegetables. Here are some key examples:
VEGETABLE NITRATE CONTENT (PER 100G)
Spinach ~741 mg
Lettuce Varies, generally high
Beets Varies, generally high
Celery Varies, generally high
Carrots Varies, generally high
Cabbage Varies, generally high
Radishes Varies, generally high
Processed Foods with Added Nitrates
Certain processed meats have nitrates added for preservation and flavor. Common examples include:
Bacon
Hot dogs
Salami
Sausages
Deli meats (e.g., ham, bologna)
Not really. Veggies do contain nitrates, but that’s not the same as the nitrites used in processed meat. In vegetables, nitrates come with antioxidants like vitamin C and polyphenols that prevent the formation of nitrosamines (the actual carcinogenic compounds). In bacon or cured meat, the combination of nitrites, proteins, and heat can create nitrosamines. Veggie nitrates are generally linked to better cardiovascular health, not cancer.
First search result on Nitrates:
Studies show that eating vegetables rich in natural nitrates can help reduce your risk of getting some chronic health conditions, whereas eating foods high in added nitrates can cause health risks. Why is that?
Experts think that the antioxidants (such as vitamin C) in vegetables with high nitrates help prevent their breakdown into nitrosamines.
The problem here is the general term “nitrates”.
Interesting, how so?
Experts think that
Ah, alright, so no science then.
Lmao, checkmate vegans! /s
They just want to keep the bacon for themselves.
100%. Its why I went veggie and say everyone should be veggie.
Great, more for me!
boomer
You know, eating meat is a non generational thing right? It’s literally a lifestyle. Just like, I don’t know: Vegetarian, Vegan, Pescatarian, Pollotarian, Flexitarian and dozens more. Asking everyone to just be “veggie” without taking this into consideration is such a myopic view.
Also, NOT a boomer lmao.
only a boomer would say this
Yes, yes you would lmao
It’s been working its way through California courts since the 2015 WHO guidelines said processed meats are carcinogenic. Under Prop 65 that should have triggered immediately labeling processed meats as “Known to the State of California to cause cancer” (like we already have on any charred food, parking garages, etc) but because reasons a decade later I think it is still being adjudicated.
anything preserved in nitrates, or celerey salt should be labeled as carcinogenic.
It’s pointless because California standards are so stringent that literally everything has a prop 65 warning on it.
It’s completely lost all value or meaning to end consumers.
That’s not why. It’s because it’s cheaper for a manufacturer of your widget to just slap a Prop 65 label on anything and everything out of an overabundance of caution rather than go through all the testing and certification required to verify if there is or isn’t any such material in the product. There’s no penalty for false positives, so to remain “complaint” suddenly every manufactured good on Earth suddenly sprouted the warning.
I mean that doesn’t really invalidate their point. If you can just slap it on anything you want then it’s not really serving any purpose, it’s not informing anyone.
Correct on that count. The whole thing is now just a boy-who-cried-wolf situation.
I would argue it is an important distinction, though.
The original statement implies that there is a problem in how California classifies what constitutes a risk.
That comment claims that it’s manufacturers being lazy.
If it’s manufacturers being lazy, then the issue is the regulation is too relaxed, allowing them to just bypass the regulation by slapping pointless stickers on things (like websites try to do with cookie banners)
If the actual requirements to not need the sticker are so stringent that everything with the label actually does need it, then there’s a problem with the level of danger listed and the regulation is too onerous.
It really needs to specify the carcinogens and what they’re used as. There’s a huge difference between “this product uses a 30% lead solder in internal components” and “adhesives used in this product may offgas formaldehyde”
Yeah, that could also provide an incentive for companies to produce stuff in ways that reduce carcinogens, yet still have some amount. I think traditional bacon that doesn’t use synthetic curing salts contain less nitrates, for example.
The classic A to F + S ranking. Nobody wants to come near an S ranked carcinogen.
Lmao a carcinogen tier list would unironically be fantastic because it would help me gauge the relative risk.
I just feel like putting evering into one big bucket is lazy as fuck and doesn’t really help anyone.
Often times it’s cheaper to add the label than pay for the product testing in a lab.
Yes!! Thank you for getting it. I have no issues with labeling carcinogens but we really need to distinguish between agents that are harmful at the ppm and the ppb levels.
There’s an entire axis that differs by orders of magnitude that is being ignored and it’s incredibly detrimental to the whole system.
This list sucks because it lacks meaningful information and is just eventually going to be a list of every compound in the known universe.
There’s magnitude and that’s important but the big thing about what, where, how is that it tells me how to protect myself and others from it. If my metal shim is an alloy containing lead, I need to wash my hands after touching it, use breathing protection and air filtration if I grind it, and cover it in the final version of the product. If it’s made in a facility that also processes lead, I can just wash it and it’ll be fine. If it may contain trace lead from ore deposits I don’t have to care. Meanwhile internal components that don’t offgas just means I’m fine if I don’t open it up
Exactly, just slapping a “warning cancer” label on literally everything does absolutely nothing to help me actually protect myself.
I heard even talking about Prop 65 is known to the state of California to cause cancer
It’s completely lost all value or meaning to end consumers.
Agreed I bought a fender telecaster (black cherry starburst, so sexy) and it had a prop 65 sticker on it. Absolutely rediculous and meaningless
Prop 65 treats everything like it’s Happy Fun Ball.
Oh boy, can’t wait to see right wing screeches about Muslim takeover of UK.
IMO every food should have cancer rating in the nutrition facts, cause it’s not black and white.
What does Muslim have to do with bacons being carcinogenic?
A lot of right wing nutters in the UK claim that Muslims are trying to take over the country and make everyone follow Sharia law, which doesn’t allow eating pork. Spouting off online that this move is part of that conspiracy would be very on brand for them. Much like Alex Jones’ “making the frogs gay” tirade.
I mean processed meat sure.
But you can pull bacon from my cold, dead, cancerous hands.
Good news! It’s bowel cancer, not hand cancer.
Look mate.
In this cold, bleak and heartless blasted hell of an existence this is one of the few genuine pleasures I have guilt free.
…do I bring up the factory farms now or come back later?
I feel no guilt over that.
Ah, so you’re a terrible person. My mistake.
I am. Never denied it.
one of the few genuine pleasures I have guilt free.
Had. “Had” guilt free.
I agree that bacon is delicious, but pigs are smarter than dogs.
You don’t have to feel guilty about risking your own health! I never felt guilty about smoking (never smoked other than in smoking areas), I never feel guilty about eating processed bullshit that is probably no good for me.
This world is too cold to feel guilty for something that only affects you! 🫡
