• Question: How can processed meat influence an earlier death?

    Asked by jessica141 to Jen, Jill, Mel, Phil, Stef on 9 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Jennifer Paxton

      Jennifer Paxton answered on 9 Mar 2013:

      Ah, someone has been reading the news this week! 😉

      Well, processed meat is really meat that has been preserved (made to last longer) and this is usually done by smoking it (using smoke from a fire), curing it (adding salts and other chemicals) or by adding chemicals called preservatives to it. So, unfortunately this means foods like bacon, salami, pepperoni, hot dogs, sausages and some ham!

      Some of the ways that food is preserved can increase levels of a chemicals in the food that some scientists believe can cause cancers. Cancer is a horrible disease that can make you very unwell, and even cause death.

      Also, these processed meats are often very high in salt and fat which we know is bad for your heart. Too much fat and salt can cause heart disease and heart attacks, which are both very dangerous and can often cause death in patients.

      This might all sound very scary but it doesn’t mean you can’t ever eat any of these foods. A little will do you no harm 🙂 Most things are OK, as long as you don’t have too much, and eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables too!

    • Photo: Phil Rice

      Phil Rice answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      Having eaten lots of rubbish food as a medical student I think I have had my fair-share. One of the reasons these foods are dangerous is that they are very easy to consume and consume too much of, so it’s easy to put on weight. That’s apart from the chemicals used to preserve them. Admit it, when you eat a burger it tastes good, but it FEELS bad!

    • Photo: Stefan Piatek

      Stefan Piatek answered on 12 Mar 2013:

      Looks like your question has mostly been covered but I’d just like to add that nutrition seems to be a very hard part of heath to study. We eat so many different things, and most people don’t know exactly what they eat too!

      It’s for this reason that even something fairly easily defined, like how a vegetarian diet is better for your heart http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21258509 , it took 45,000 different people to be studied!

    • Photo: Melissa Brereton

      Melissa Brereton answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      Processed meat can increase of heart disease and cancer. This could be because it was found that people who ate a lot of processed meat also didn’t eat much fruit and vegetables and were more likely to smoke. However, it is thought that red meat such as beef, can be good for you because it contains a lot of important vitamins and nutrients such as protein, zinc, iron, vitamins A and B. The problem with processed meat is that it contains a lot of salt. Too much salt is bad for you as it prevents your kidneys from removing water from the body- this water is kept in the blood which increases your blood pressure.

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