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Does anyone who is eating bacon in any form really that concerned with the health aspects of it? I love bacon, but keep my usage very moderate.
by bwanab 5y ago
Does anyone who is eating bacon in any form really that concerned with the health aspects of it? I love bacon, but keep my usage very moderate.
- Spivak 5y agoI mean it’s just cured pork, there’s no inherent reason for such a thing to be any more or less healthy than comparable cuts of fatty meat.
- colechristensen 5y agoNo, there is, nitrates can be carcinogenic. That’s what the curing agent is and the same for “uncured”.
- memish 5y agoWhat's the actual risk though? The CDC says "Don’t taste or eat raw (unbaked) dough or batter", but many do anyway because the risk is low enough to not be overly concerned about.
- pdpi 5y agoRaw dough/batter is a one-off risk. If that one batch wasn't contaminated, you're safe. Insofar as nitrates are a risk, they're more of a cumulative chronic exposure sort of risk.
- memish 5y agoBut still, what's the actual risk? Is the cumulative risk on the order of 0.01% to 0.1%? Or is it like 1% to 10%? If it's the former, then it's not worth thinking about. If it's the latter, I may change my behavior. Or it could be expressed via expected life years lost. If 1 year, eh. If it's 10 years, that's another story. Also how much would need to be consumed. Are we talking about bacon every day? Or once a week? Or month?
- pdpi 5y agoI have no idea whether it even is a risk. My point was that it’s very hard to compare the two examples because they’re very different risk profiles, irrespective of the magnitude of their effects
- jnwatson 5y agoConsumption of processed meat is significant enough of a health impact that it is a common question in lifetime expectancy calculators.
- aantix 5y agoDo generic, broad warnings like "do not operate heavy machinery" hurt larger public health efforts like mask wearing?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sokoloff 5y agoMask wearing happens where there are mandates. “If you don’t have a mask, you can’t come in and buy groceries.” I don’t think anything was going to make optional masking commonplace over a long period of time, so I wouldn’t blame excessive warning labels on it.
- bumby 5y agoThe article speaks specifically about colorectal cancer: >found that every 50 grams of processed meat per day upped the risk by 18 percent 18% sounds like a big increase, and it is a big increase from a relative standpoint. But the absolute risk goes from 5% lifetime risk to 6% lifetime risk in the linked study.
- tptacek 5y agoNitrates are in everything. That's part of the point of this article: you can cure bacon with celery extract. Anyways, this subthread begs the question. What we're debating is the health risk of nitrates. The parent comment asks, essentially, "do nitrates matter? bacon is already unhealthy".
- astrange 5y agoPork isn't especially unhealthy, it's just that everything you learned about nutrition in the 90s was a lie. You don't actually have to follow the food pyramid and eat an entire loaf of bread a day. Bacon may be unhealthy since it's generally burnt to a crisp and has more oxidants.
- kritiko 5y agoBacon is ~40% fat. The sodium is probably carcinogenic in addition to any compounds developed in cooking. A lot of nutrition science has changed recently, but eating a bunch of saturated fat is still generally believed cause cardiovascular disease. I think there's evidence that keto and even carnivore can work for some people. Ted Naiman seems more sustainable/evidence-based to me if you want to eat animal protein.
- imtringued 5y agoThe average american is insulin resistant and diabetes and heart disease are primarily caused by excess glucose. Saturated fat in comparison literally doesn't matter and since it is much harder to oxidize it can extend your lifespan.
- caeril 5y ago> A lot of nutrition science has changed recently, but eating a bunch of saturated fat is still generally believed cause cardiovascular disease. The specifically interesting part of nutrition science changes is that we've discovered how individualized this is. Same with salt intake. Some people can pack away 10g of sodium per day with no deleterious effects on their blood pressure. Others respond very poorly to it. Some people can raw slonk a dozen egg yolks or 1/4lb of lard and see no appreciable rise in serum total cholesterol or LDL levels. Others cannot. The main thing we've learned is that dietary advice based on broad population studies will tell you precisely nothing about how good or bad a given food is for your specific metabolism, epigenetic expression, and physiology. We should all go for differential blood panels in our teens or early twenties to determine this up front. A thousand dollars to save a hundred times that later down the road.
- jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y agoProcessed meats like bacon are a known carcinogen according to the WHO. Unprocessed red meats are only a probable carcinogen.
- tptacek 5y agoSo is alcohol, salted fish, and potatoes, and so are a bunch of toxic chemicals that aren't an expected component of foods that we nevertheless ingest in trace amounts; the dose makes the poison.
- jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y agoIts true that the dose makes the poison and in the case of processed meats, the dose that people normally eat is enough to increase their risk of bowel and stomach cancer. Its telling that you are comparing it to alcohol, another substance that many people drink cancer-causing amounts of. I believe the acrylamide that forms in roasted or fried potatoes is only a probable carcinogen and only causes cancer in studies with doses much higher than people eat.
- tptacek 5y agoOr, for that matter, the aflatoxins in peanuts and coffee.
- jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y agoAflatoxin content is regulated by the government. If we had similar regulations for processed meat, there would be no bacon.
- Dwolb 5y agoYeah I do and I suspect other people who have gone through a protein heavy diet cycle (like keto) may as well. When it comes to counting macros, bacon’s a great source for fat (that you can also save and re-use in other dishes).
- gnicholas 5y agoLunch meat manufacturers do the same thing, so this goes beyond bacon (which everyone knows is unhealthy and shouldn't be eaten all the time).
- carom 5y agoSodium nitrites are a sinus headache trigger for me. I tried the uncured stuff and got a headache. After a little research I learned about celery powder naturally having it. Really disingenuous way to market it. I still eat pork belly (actually uncured bacon) regularly.
- soneca 5y agoHow did you find that connection? Is there some known association or was just trial and error on yourself?
- carom 5y agoEating almost exclusively at home and an food allergy dedicated restaurant. After still getting headaches I asked the owner and he pointed out the pepperoni. Tested independently with deli meat and bacon. Best advice is to do an elimination diet. It improved for me then it was years of trial and error. I basically just eat meat, rice, milk, butter, and broccoli now but not wanting to take a drill to my forehead is great.
- Tagbert 5y agoDoes pork belly have the smokey taste of bacon or is it simply fatty pork?