No food is more more perfect than bacon. Its fatty, salty, meaty goodness can cure many ailments, such as hangovers and waking up on the wrong side of the bed.
But with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recent reclassification of bacon and other processed meats as carcinogens in the same class as cigarettes and asbestos, this most holy of pork products could be taken away from us — but, more likely, it will probably just be relabeled to convey the risk.
As most of us are aware, bacon isn’t exactly a health food, which is one of the many reasons that it is so enjoyable. And even in the wake of the WHO’s study, I am still going to gobble down bacon and other processed meats; I enjoy eating them, and would classify myself as a casual processed meat-eater. I don’t eat them everyday, but when I do, I enjoy the hell out of them. They can add the right amount of smokiness to a burger, or turn a bland maple doughnut into something special.
My health concerns surrounding processed meats aren’t that they will give me cancer, because at this point in my life I am fully resigned to the fact that everything will give me cancer. Instead, it’s the heightened cholesterol, hardened arteries, and the other cardiovascular results of overeating fatty processed foods that are scarier to me than ordering my eggs with a possible side of cancer.
Don’t get me wrong, I love learning more about the world around us through scientific research, but the way the media presents the story falls under complete sensationalism. ‘Bacon causes cancer: What you can do to keep your family safe!’
While the evidence does show a link between eating large amounts of processed and red meats, the type of cancer that could be developed from consuming large amounts of these foods is colorectal cancer, which already has a low developmental risk.
Yes, cancer is a disease that should be taken seriously, but it is influenced by many factors — some of which we understand far better than others. There are so many carcinogens present around us that we should all have cancer by now, yet we don’t. The real issue here isn’t if we are playing Russian roulette every time we order a bacon cheeseburger, it’s that we still don’t understand the underlying causes of cancer well enough to make any sort of sweeping generalizations about these causes other than asbestos, cigarette smoke, and overexposure to UV radiation.
So I will continue to eat my bacon cheeseburgers, bacon and eggs, and maple bacon doughnuts. Though I will still only treat myself to these things once in a while, since the risk of heart disease is scarier to me than the risk of cancer. I will continue to support cancer research, and I will continue to not take at face value what large media outlets tell me about science, because most of the time it’s bloated crap.
