Are Red Meats Really Carcinogenic?

A recent World Health Organization (WHO) report has reported that red meats are carcinogenic. There was an immediate fear-based reaction from some mainstream media outlets. The London based daily tabloid The Mirror headlined an article with “No amount of alcohol, sausage or bacon is safe according to cancer experts.” There were other similar headlines throughout the UK. The Guardian, a UK newspaper, was even more outrageous: “Yes, bacon really is killing us.” The Guardian’s take on the UK media reaction was that Britain’s diet is big on bacon, sausage, and sliced ham lunch meats, and therefore unhealthy. The WHO report was made by World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) as part of its Continuous Update Project (CUP), which updates results of international cancer researchers every few years. However, their research did not discriminate, analyze, or explain the differences among the meat and processed meat options that are available. It’s well known that epidemiologists who put out dietary surveys don’t ask the types of questions that indicate whether one consumes junk food meats, processed meats, or meats from free-range grass-fed and/or organic-fed animals without antibiotics or growth hormone injections. So we’ll do that instead in this article.