Posted on 10/05/2026 10:32:44 AM PDT by Red Badger
Eating processed meat may be to blame for a boom in bowel cancer, according to a scientist.
Prof Chris Elliott, founder of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast, said that chemicals found in bacon and ham are “one of the main suspects” for increased cases of the disease.
Early-onset bowel cancer has increased substantially in adults under 50 across the world since 1990.
Studies suggest the UK has one of the fastest-rising rates, with estimates putting the increase at around 60 per cent.
Speaking to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, Prof Elliott said the increase was “down to our environment, what we eat, what we drink”.
“One of the main suspects that I’ve been pursuing for about 10 years is the use of a particular class of chemicals in the processing of meats, particularly in bacon and ham, called nitrates or nitrites,” he said.
“There is a growing body of evidence that the presence of these in the meats that we will consume are a contributory factor to the onset of colon cancer.”
Consuming large amounts of red meat has previously been associated with an increased risk of cancer.
However, Prof Elliott said he believed that eating red meat is “actually good for us [if] consumed in the right amount”.
Instead, he warned that chemicals added to ham and bacon to give them their pink colour and increase shelf life were to blame and called on the food safety watchdog to take action by placing warning labels on certain food packaging, following similar legislation in France.
“We have to point the finger at the regulator here, the Food Standards Agency, for basically sitting on their hands,” he said.
“Other parts of the world, particularly Europe, are taking this much more seriously.”
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plain greek yogurt.....
Have a date. A couple of them a day and things move right along.
Well, they do eat a lot of Spotted Dick.
Because balogna and Pickle and pimento wehad in the ‘50s were so much healthier,
Ahh, a little cancer never hurt anybody. Everybody needs a little cancer, I think. It’s good for you. Keeps you on your toes. Besides, I ain’t afraid of cancer... I had broccoli for lunch. Broccoli kills cancer! A lot of people don’t know that; it’s not out yet. It’s true. You find out you got some cancer...(click) get yourself a bowl of broccoli. That’ll wipe it right out in a day or two. Cauliflower too; cauliflower kills the really big cancers. The ones you can see through clothing from across the street.
Broccoli kills the little ones. The ones that are slowly eating you away from inside while your goofy, half-educated doctor keeps telling you, “You’re doing fine, Jim.”
In fact, bring your doctor a bowl of broccoli. He’s probably got cancer too. Probably picked it up from you.
They don’t know what their doing. It’s all guesswork in a white coat. Here, let me have a few more sips of industrial waste. Ahh, maybe, maybe I can turn them cancers against one another. That’s what you gotta hope for, you know, that you get more than one cancer so they eat each other up instead of you. In fact, the way I look at it, the more cancer you got, the healthier you are.
-George Carlin
The recent uptick in colon cancer among young people is real - a couple of generations ago, a colon cancer patient much under 60 was relatively rare. However, I’m not convinced this is the culprit. Processed meats and junk food filled with nitrate and sulfide preservatives have been around for a long time - I doubt that hot dogs in the 1960s were any healthier than hot dogs today.
Surely bacon is not considered to be processed meat.
It is the most healthy meat of all!
IMHO we need to look at hydration habits. Are people as hydrated as they used to be? It may not be that sodas and power drinks and such are bad for us as much as they’re not good like water. Our bowels might be working too hard trying to get enough water from our waste.
Yep.
Of course, that was before the COVID Clotshots.
COVID shots
Around 1990. Isn’t that around the time that Hilary Clinton entered the national scene?
Nitrates are what make Disneyland turkey legs pink.
My wife won’t let me have dates..............🤔
Exactly.................
—— “may be” maybe. Science says maybe. The news says maybe. May be maybe isn’t such certainty as the MayBe crowd would like.....
Now we have “nitrate free” processed meats. Although they have nitrates from natural sources.
Is a half (or full) ham such as one might find during holidays considered “processed”?
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