I think this country could be in danger of becoming under-nourished..... .....

oh right. Someone does a huge, expensive, long, scientific study and tells us that eating processed meats increases our risk of dying younger than we would otherwise have done. Is this not actually worth discussing? Sorry, no, straight to dismissing. What are you like?
Looks like pretty strong evidence to me. 3% of premature deaths caused by preserved meats. (NOT red meat). Conclusion - if you want to reduce this risk eat bacon as a treat, not as a routine. Use salami etc as a garnish not as a protein source. Don't have ham or corned beef sandwiches every day for your lunch.
Bags you know perfectly well that our bacon-eating ancestors were not very long lived in the main. However they had a few more things to contend with than bacon, which will have accounted for most of the premature deaths in those days: childbirth, tuberculosis, sepsis, wars etc.
Living long enough to be killed by bacon is a privilege when you think about it.

I guess you need to say it again, dusty, with more force, or maybe adding "and that includes chicken". Reminds me of when I didn't drink wine. People would still fill my glass. That has improved so maybe people will eventually understand when you say you don't eat meat. Hope so

Exactly, jess. Living long enough to be killed by bacon is a privilege. Besides which, don't these reports always use uncertain language, such as "may" or "can", both of which suggest to a scientific mind that what is shown really isn't clear at all.

Bacon and sausages tend to be made of cheap meat. Poorer people tend to buy cheap meat. They also tend to buy other cheap food and generally not to have such a good diet as better off people. The same studies show this too. Maybe the "results" have more to do with poverty and multiple other 'causes' of poorer health.

I think there's usually a mention of less exercise too taken by bacon and sausage eaters.

In short, a clear link has not been proved.

Yet.

And may never be.

I shall carry on eating bacon and sausages and not worry about it.

Just read this. "a naturally occurring mineral, sodium nitrate is present in all kinds of vegetables (root veggies like carrots as well as leafy greens like celery and spinach) along with all sorts of fruits and grains. Basically, anything that grows from the ground draws sodium nitrate out of the soil."

And. "One of the things that happens when sodium nitrate is used as a curing agent is that the sodium nitrate is converted to sodium nitrite. It's sodium nitrite that actually possesses the antimicrobial properties that make it a good preservative. Interestingly, the sodium nitrate that we consume through fruits, vegetables and grains is also converted to sodium nitrite by our digestive process. In other words, when we eat fruits, vegetables or grains, our bodies produce sodium nitrite."

Yep, thought so. Just checked the Beeb article and the words "appear to increase..." jump out at the top. And if you read it all there's an awful lot of padding that is not scientific, and no link to actual study and the actual study data, and the actual experiment that was undertaken, nor by whom it was undertaken, and so on. These things are important and real scientists know that.

And go down the the comment by Tracey ?Parker near the wee video thingy. What she says is what I'm saying. People who eat a lot of processed food (meat included) tend to make (or have made for them by lack of money, perhaps?) other 'unhealthy' lifestyle choices as well.

In short, it really isn't simple at all.

I have spent an enormous amount of my adult life researching and writing about food and developing recipes. I am very interested in nutrition. My instinct says that bacon, sausages, other preserved foods once in a while are fine. Every meal, every day – no. Carrots, once in a while fine. Every meal every day, no. In other words, a mixed diet with as much variety as possible is likely to be the healthiest.

I agree absent. I guess it doesn't hurt to cut back a bit.

I worry a bit about my grandsons. They love their cheese and ham sandwiches. It's a daily thing with them. And the older one has just taken to bacon big time. What can you do really?

Nothing jo8 cos you are not officer in charge of what they eat (I assume)
So true absent. If you eat too many carrots you turn orange. Nice.
Bags you know as well as I do that scientists always talk like that. it is how they are trained and quite rightly so.
They did do a lot of statistical corrections. This is about as confident as they ever get with a population study. Apart from the memorable study of doctors in the 1950s which pretty much proved that smoking was bad for you. The results were that dramatic with the smokers dropping like flies. And a nice group to work with - male UK doctors. very easy to keep track of.
They do not know it is the sodium nitrate or nitrite. This kind of study does not prove a causal link - only experiments do that. (apart from that smoking one!) And on the subject of nitrates and nitrites there will be oodles more in preserved meat than there will be in vegetables.

Of course I'm not! I didn't say I was. I do talk with their mum though. And amicably.

I have got some stake in them - they're my grandsons FGS!

Who on earth is going to et so many carrots that they turn orange?!

Yes! I know it has happened. But a very rare event.

It is the nitrates and nitrites which are the main cause for concern in this study. But I don't think most people eat enough to cause harm.

Like I say, not a bad idea to keep quantities and frequency down.

well the main hunch is how I'd put it. I think at one time some alternative cancer therapy types were telling people to consume that amount of carrots/carrot juice. rubbish of course. turning orange from too much beta carotene does not cure cancer.

Imo it is better to eat everything in as near to its natural state as we can, within reason. Surely the more food is interefered with the worse it probably is for us? Then once in a while have some of the stuff which is more processed and not so good for us as no one wants to be a martyr. We much prefer meals where we have done any processing so we know what is in them.

It was funny this morning though when DH got on the scales and had put on weight when he thought he should have lost some. He said it must have been the bacon sandwiches. Then he heard on the radio that bacon was bad for him and felt it was a triple whammy, the third being that I had been telling him for years why he couldn't lose weight! He still won't believe I am always right

It certainly happened to one of my ex neighbours in the UK who was obsessed with her weight and ate carrots from morn to night. It actually can be quite dangerous.

My DH's grandfather born in 1898 used to maintain that Marie Lloyd was the only nutritionist anybody needed when she sang "A little of what you fancy does you good"!
The key word is little - we are, or have bred, a generation of binge-drinkers, binge-eaters, binge-exercisers, binge-snackers, binge-health fanatics and binge- self-appointed gullible experts.

Well said Gracesmum

And you know as well as I do, jess, that a population study is not a scientific experiment and so nothing has been proved. An epidemiological survey may find correlations, which may be useful for highlighting where further actual research experiments may be needed for greater understanding, but it does not provide "links", only correlations which, as you know, are not good enough.

You also know as well as I do that the mainstream media is not good at reporting science.

I'm sure we both agree, as well, that moderation in all things is a good rule of thumb.

And that good rule of thumb is basically all the article was saying. So, not science.

Bags you cannot experiment on human beings. A population study is scientifically valid given certain controls and safeguards. It was population studies which first highlighted the correlation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Those results were met with the same initial scepticism.

I'm agreeing with you in the main bags - I think. But as orca says, there are some population studies that have been much more thoroughly done than others and should be given their due. This may (she said, using qualified language) be one of them.

I agree that you can't experiment on human beings, but experiments can be devised to obtain, or try to obtain, actual scientific links rather than correlations. And they should be obtained before we can be categorical. I think one of the problems, apart from the fact that media reporting of things scientific is not good, is that there's also a modern, 'politically correct' attitude to meat at stake here – it's PC to be a bit anti-meat. This is for reasons quite apart from meat's effect on people's health, and I do think it plays a part in this kind of reporting, possibly subconsciously.

#expectingtobeshotdownforthat

It's just common sense really. No need for science.

When I was a kid, most people were 'normal' size. I had one friend who was chubby and one who was a bit thinner than the rest of us. Size and weight were never thought about, or discussed.

Nowadays we are going towards 2 sizes, far too fat, and far too thin. 'Normal' is getting rarer and rarer.

Bags I'm not going to shoot you down. Yes, such an experiment is possible. Perhaps all the redundant chain-smoking beagles can now be force fed bacon, sausages and processed ham?