Bacon, Ham, Sausages and Red Meat...

[Jack Knave]

Not sure it really is more common - just that people used to die of other things earlier - cancer usually takes longer to kill you, and we are better at detecting it. Also whatever we do ate, we eat a lot more of it now.

In any case, we have more exposure to various chemicals and additives we didn't used to. Then there is skin cancer, holes in the ozone layer, increased radiation due to technology, particulates from diesel etc etc.

One of the greatest discussions about humanity has yet to be inaugurated - just how long is the world going to be able to continue to support humanity at the rate that, currently, humanity is destroying it?

50 years? 100 years? 1,000 years?

Or, it is I think possble, someone is going to come up with a idea that will result in a catastrophic natural event that will wipe out humanity next year.

We, humanity, are stupid enough for it to happen.

Yes, mankind is stupid and something has to snap and pretty soon........and no doubt it will be the perfect storm...

[jeremyp]

They add: “"Its report says each 50g of processed meat a day - the equivalent of one sausage, or less than two slices of bacon - increases the chance of developing bowel cancer by 18 per cent.”

An increase of 18% sounds very bad, almost as if your lifespan will be reduced by 18%

No it doesn't sound anything like your life span will be reduced by 18%.

What does it actually mean? Well, in 2011 75 men in every 100,000 were diagnosed with bowel cancer. Let's assume they all exceeded the sausage limit. Had there been no sausages or bacon, only 64 men in every 100k would have been diagnosed with bowel cancer.

All this means that my chance of avoiding bowel cancer next year is 99.925% whereas, if I give up bacon sandwiches et al, my chance of avoiding bowel cancer rises to 99.937%.

I'll take my chances, crispy please.

[Red Giant]

What I don't understand is that cancer seems more common these days, yet red meat has always been a staple of the diet, possibly more so than today.

Re red meat - is it not possible that the attack of red-meat is because the higher echelons the nutritionist world has been subtly taken over by the Militant Veggie Mafia?

These things are always cultural.  Follow the Zeitgeist.

Cereals will be the next target I think.  There's more logic in that - homo erectus cooked meat, but grain crops are a much more recent invention, which we can't be biologically adapted to.

The meat industry needs to get its act together.  The fat scare is promoted by the corn syrup industry, which has done very well out of it.  Only recently I was looking at a reduced-fat product which had 50% more calories than the plain version.

[Red Giant]

Matty, the truth is that you don't send your crap through the mail. That is done for you. Another one of your over the top fibs. And that is why I took a shot at your stupid attempt at being funny. Get real, if you Brits have to actually collect and mail your own poop, then your nation needs help.

Yes we do that because it's more cost effective, and less embarassing than taking a tube of poop into a surgery or going to a surgery to take a dump.

But over there they don't take dumps, they have colonic irrigation instead.

[Red Giant]

Not sure it really is more common - just that people used to die of other things earlier - cancer usually takes longer to kill you

If they found a cure for heart disease, think how much cancer that would cause.

[Harrowby Hall]

What I don't understand is that cancer seems more common these days, yet red meat has always been a staple of the diet, possibly more so than today.

Cancers are essentially (though not exclusively) a disease of old age. They occur because errors occur in dna replication, the longer one lives the more times our cells replicate and the greater the likelihood that replication errors occur.

So, one reason for a perceived increase in the incidence of cancer is that we are living longer. Related to this is the fact that it is now generally easier to identify causes of death and also to diagnose cancers than used to be the case. In many cases a specific cause of death can only be identified as a result of post mortem investigation - in times gone by such investigation may not have been as common or as rigorous as today.

[jeremyp]

Richard Carrier has a very good article on the assessment of the bacon risk

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/8809

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Richard Carrier has a very good article on the assessment of the bacon risk

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/8809

Mmmmm He's good on bacon.....that must mean he must be authorative on theology.

[OH MY WORLD!]

Seriously trent? You fish your poop out of your toilet and mail it to your doctor? How do you package that. Cost effective? How is sending your poop through the mail cost effective? You are going to the doctor anyways, bring it with you. Yikes, I wouldn't care to be a postal worker and having to handle your crap. But I've never had a surgery nor have I ever had a doctor ask me to poop. And nobody I know or known has ever mentioned sending poop through Canada Post.

[Sebastian Toe]

Seriously trent? You fish your poop out of your toilet and mail it to your doctor? How do you package that. Cost effective? How is sending your poop through the mail cost effective? You are going to the doctor anyways, bring it with you. Yikes, I wouldn't care to be a postal worker and having to handle your crap. But I've never had a surgery nor have I ever had a doctor ask me to poop. And nobody I know or known has ever mentioned sending poop through Canada Post.

The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer

Home testing instructions for colon cancer;

SAMPLE 3
Repeat steps 1 to 10 above using the third flap.

    Put the test card in the foil envelope and seal the envelope tightly.
    Put the foil envelope and the completed form in the postage-paid envelope.
    Mail it or drop it off at a community laboratory collection centre.




http://tinyurl.com/nkg385u

edited to replace long URL

[jeremyp]

Richard Carrier has a very good article on the assessment of the bacon risk

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/8809

Mmmmm He's good on bacon.....that must mean he must be authorative on theology.

So are you deliberately trying to drive a thread about cancer risk from processed meat off topic? Why would you want to be such an arsehole?

Hmm, may be arsehole isn't a good insult on a thread about bowel cancer... Why are you trying to be such a fuckwit?