Even more reasons to eat less processed meats....

Today's Post: Thursday, 8-11-2011

A few posts back we noted the news of research showing that processed meats were far more likely to cause heart disease than meat that isn’t processed and other sources of protein such as wild caught fish, eggs, lowfat dairy foods, nuts, and beans and lentils. Even chicken, turkey, full fat cheese, and other sources were better for you than processed meats.

Processed meats include: hot dogs, lunch meats, bacon, pepperoni, sausage, and ham.

Now there is more bad news for these foods. Eating even a small serving daily was tested as making colon cancer, prostate cancer, and some other cancers more likely.

The non-profit organization, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, had this in their article I saw:

“At least 58 scientific studies have looked at the issue, and the jury has rendered its verdict, which is now beyond reasonable doubt. The more hot dogs people eat, the higher their risk of colorectal cancer. And it's not just hot dogs. Any sort of processed meat -- bacon, sausage, ham, deli slices -- is in this group.

And here are the numbers: Every 50 grams of processed meat you eat on a daily basis (that's about one hot dog) increases your risk of colorectal cancer by 21 percent. And just as there is no safe level of smoking, no amount of hot dogs, bacon, sausage, ham or other processed meats comes out clean in scientific studies.

The problem goes beyond colorectal cancer. An NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study found a 10 percent increased risk of prostate cancer for every 10 grams of increased intake of processed meats. Other studies have linked these same products to leukemia and ovarian cancer.

Exactly how processed meats do their dirty work is not clear; it could be their nitrites, saturated fat or other ingredients.”

But there’s MORE yet. Other research recently in the news shows one of the ways that eating processed meats causes or worsens heart disease had this:

“Red meat boosts diabetes risk: US study AFP Weds, 8-10-2011

Two slices of bacon, a hot dog or a serving of deli meat daily has been found to significantly boost the risk of getting type 2 diabetes, said a major US study published on Wednesday.

The research by experts at the Harvard School of Public Health represents the largest study of its kind to date and appears in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Eating 50 grams of processed red meat every day increased a person's diabetes risk by 51 percent, while eating 100 grams of unprocessed red meat each day, about the size of a deck of cards, boosted the risk by 19 percent.

However, those risks went down if the red meat was substituted with nuts, white meat, low-fat dairy or whole grain proteins.”

Our news is this.

We, meaning the overall health promoting industry and the more knowledgeable people in it, DO know some of the reasons for this.

Although these foods are high in fat, saturated fat, salt, and preservatives such as nitrites and nitrates, none of which is good for you -- particularly not in high daily doses, I think most of the damage comes from a different source.

These high fat meats are virtually all from grain fed animals. In his book, Anticancer, A New Way of Life, New Edition, Doctor David Servan-Schreiber makes a very strong case that the very high amounts of omega 6 oils in the fat of meats from animals fed grain, particularly corn, causes chronic inflammation.

We know that such inflammation causes heart disease. Dr Servan-Schreiber makes a strong case in his book that it also helps cause many cancers. These many studies seem to find strong evidence this is the case.

But there’s more. The grain these animals are fed contains some of the pesticides and herbicides that were sprayed onto the grain. It’s not a lot on the grain. But cattle and other large animals eat a lot of grain. And these pesticides and herbicides are then bioconcentrated in the fat of the animals that eat the grain.

Most of these processed meats taste good unfortunately.

What can you do now that you know this?

1. For one thing, you can eat these foods a LOT less. Instead of once to three times a day, if you have them at all, drop them to once or twice a month. That’s over 30 times safer to start with.

2. For ham, a processed meat, and beef and lamb, two of the red meats, another way to go is to start with lean versions and trim off most to almost all of the fat.

(I once de-fatted a 10 pound ham my wife brought home one Thanksgiving as a gift from her job.

I cut off all the easily accessible fat. I cut the rest into about one inch cubes. Then I boiled those cubes and removed all the chunks of fat that came loose. Then I put the water and ham chunks into the refrigerator overnight. The next morning, I skimmed off the layer of saturated fat off the top. Then I repeated the whole process a second time. Did the whole process a third time. And after skimming off the saturated fat off the top of the water, I poured out the water.

What I wound up with was about a pound or so of pea sized pork chunks that were dramatically less fat. Needless to say the salt and processing chemicals were also more than 95 % gone.

I then cooked it with small green peas and pearl onions. It was pretty good actually. But that was a LOT of work.)

You can always cook fat removed grain fed meats into mixed dishes with onion, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, and other spices to get good flavor and the stick to your ribs effect of the original.

3. It’s also possible to buy beef and lamb from animals fed only grass --100 % grass fed. (Grass fed, grain finished beef costs more and is not that much better than just grain fed.)

Such real grass fed beef and lamb is leaner and less fat to start with, so you may need to cut them into smaller chunks and perhaps cook them into mixed dishes with onion, some extra virgin olive oil, garlic, and other spices for the best eating.

But the excessive omega 6 oils and all or most of the bioconcentrated herbicides and pesticides are gone. The animals never ate them to begin with!

So eating such meats as often as once or twice a week is likely safe.

4. The best solution is to eat other kinds of protein foods on most days.

Beans and lentils are very inexpensive and good for you in many ways besides not having animal fats high in omega 6 oils. They have incomplete proteins but need not be eaten by themselves. You can eat them with two percent lowfat milk. You can eat them with eggs. You can eat them with cheese. And, I even eat them with wild caught salmon occasionally.

Wild caught salmon, sardines, herring, and small mackerel are fish that do you triple good. They are all good protein sources. They all have enough oils to be quite filling. But best of all, they are high in the omega 3 oils that lower inflammation and help balance any omega 6 oils that you do eat.

Eggs and skinless poultry from pasture fed chicken and turkey are OK. And they aren’t too bad in moderation if even grain fed because they have so much less fat than red meats and processed meats.

Mushrooms and nuts (if you aren’t allergic to nuts) are also high in protein. Like beans and lentils, they are incomplete proteins; but also like beans and lentils they provide many kinds of health benefits besides the protein in them.

Whole grain foods are like beans and lentils as they have incomplete protein. Eating some is OK. But you need to avoid too much or eating them without less glycemic foods to balance them. Refined grain foods and even 100 % whole grain foods eaten by themselves boost your blood sugar more than sugar does.

The summary is that processed meats are best eaten if at all as a very infrequent treat.

Eating them more often than that tends to cause diseases -- heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and colon cancer and other cancers to be specific.