W.H.O. and Red Meat

By Phillip Percival

Recently the WHO announced that “red-meat” was a carcinogen, as bad for you as smoking. At least that’s how media immediately presented it. Of course this flies in the face of 2,000,000 years of evolution as an omnivore and the fact that hominids as far back as homo-erectus were using fire to cook meat.

So what is the truth about red meat? Well there are some common sense answers. Any meat that is preserved with sodium sulphite or excess sodium nitrite can be bad for the digestive system. Any preservatives designed to kill bacterial cells are likely to upset the gut's natural biome or damage the epithelial cells of the intestines. It is well known that prolonged irritation of cellular tissue (chronic inflammation) can lead to cancer.

It should be clear that sodium nitrite is harmful in its raw form (as an alkaline it irritates the skin) but nitrates are generally non-toxic per se and naturally occurring in vegetables in smaller proportions. Additionally, while meats are preserved or pickled with Sodium Nitrite it's not exactly clear what the by-products are. It's entirely possible (as is being claimed elsewhere) that the sodium nitrite is neutralised. A chemistry student will understand that not all salts sharing the same free-radical are the same. For example: compare sodium carbonate (washing soda, a strong alkaline) to calcium carbonate which is essentially limestone. To say all carbonates are safe or unsafe without qualifying which carbonate compound, is irresponsible.

Even if you throw caution to the wind and buy nitrite filled sausages and processed meats, getting cancer isn’t guaranteed. From the WHO report, consumption of preserved meats supposedly increases the risk by some percentage. Thus if the risk of developing colorectal cancer is 5 in 200 then eating artificially preserved meats will increase your chances to say 6 in 200 assuming a 20% increase in risk as a result of eating "processed red-meat”.

Twenty percent sounds bad as a percentage but in reality its more like statistical noise when looking at the big picture. Scientifically speaking the risk exists because nitrites are converted into nitrosamines which collect in the colon and irritate the epithelial cells. This really isn’t a surprise, nitrites in the proportions they are piled into meat have been on the list of preservatives-to-avoid for years. Nevertheless, the scientific community isn't infallible and assumptions may have been made about the toxicity of nitrosomes in the first place.

We may choose to err on the side of caution and avoid eating sausages, bacon, hams, pickled meats (and vegetables) preserved with nitrites. In addition meat cured by smoke will be impregnated by hydrocarbon by-products in the smoke. How toxic those substances are is another study entirely. But the take away might be that the less a food is processed the healthier it is to eat.

What the WHO is withholding of course is that sugars, plant lectins and glutens also irritate the digestive system. And foods made from grains, starches and sugar have been implicated in increased cancer risk. Still, according to the WHO’s food pyramid, grains and starches should constitute our primary food source.

According to the science behind meat consumption studies, iron compounds (haemoglobin for example) in cooked meat (red or white) can break down into heterocyclic-amines which appear in the colon and irritate the surface cells (epithelium). But what is not explained is that the prevalence of heterocyclic-amines can be neutralised by resistant starch and antioxidants naturally occurring in vegetables.

In other words a proper diet high in anti-oxidants could neutralise the risk, if there really is one, of eating red meat. That probably explains why our ancestors didn’t eat themselves into extinction a million years ago.

The point that the FDA, global authorities, vegetarian lobbies and experts don’t always take into consideration is the fact that the endocrinal, enzymatic and digestive processes of the body are often too complex to divine with linear thinking. For example recent studies suggest that lactose intolerance may be mitigated by drinking whole milk. That is, the fat in milk can make lactose easier to digest. By looking at singular compounds (like lactose alone) and their independent effect on the body, scientists may be overlooking the natural compensatory (and more complex) processes that the body employs to digest foods rich in a mixture of macro nutrients.

Some other things to consider about red meat are:

• Our ancestors would not have eaten a sick animal, yet feeder-lot cattle dieting on lectin filled grains and grain chaff may by definition be sick. Sick enough to be given antibiotics or anti-inflammatory drugs preventatively to keep them from developing ulcers or intestinal disease. In addition the effect of administering bovine growth hormone (somatropin) to cattle in some countries, in order to increase meat productivity, is known to create problems for livestock. So much so that hormone usage in Europe is banned, as is the unnecessary use of antibiotics.
• Cattle are obviously designed to eat grass not grains. Consequently the quality of the meat (particularly the fat) that humans eat must be directly related to our cattle's diet. Arguably, grass fed meat has a different (better) quality of fat than grain fed meat.
• The studies that the WHO are citing are usually statistical in nature. Scientists survey a hundred people (or as little as two dozen) over a year and rely on food logs pulled from memory to relate measured stool findings to dietary input. This is rarely conclusive because it does not always take into account the other food sources that people consume. The amount of sugar, grains and antioxidants for example can have a significant impact.
• When cooking with vegetable oils, unsaturated fats break down and oxidise into compounds that may also be toxic. This is the reason why using more thermally stable oils like olive, peanut, coconut for example, is generally preferred. Saturated fats like butter and lard may actually be safer to cook with but once again the scientific community often struggles to identify exactly what is and isn’t safe.

At the end of the day people should be more concerned with rising incidents of diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, obesity and diet related disease stemming from a culture obsessed with starches and sugars. A culture which overlooks the importance of essential saturated fats, meat proteins and vitamins that only meat can deliver. The grain industry and vegetarian movement may prefer that we eat like horses (dining on corn, oats and wheat) at the exclusion of meat but this appears to be leading humanity in the direction of dietary disease and vitamin or mineral deficiency, not healthy longevity.

Follow the links:

Red meat and links to colorectal cancer.

Carcinogenicity of red meat consumption.

Resistant starch effects on heterocyclic amines.