Smoking bacon – just as dangerous as smoking cigarettes?
OK – so let’s get to the bottom of it. Bowel cancer is the 3rd most prevalent cancer in the UK and the most closely connected to high red meat diet.
I’m not sure quite what to make of the advice in Michael Mosley’s recent documentary, Should I Eat Meat still available on the BBC iPayer:
Have a colonoscopy in your mid-fifties, to look for pre-cancerous polyps in the large bowel, in order to zap them, before they get a chance to become nasty…
And I’m certainly still reeling from what they said about smoked food:
You’re ingesting the same chemicals i.e. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as you would if you were to smoke a cigarette!
PAHs are found in fossil fuels – oil and coal and tar deposits. When metabolised they are highly carcinogenic!
Hmmm – nice!
Not only that, the saltiness comes from sodium nitrite, and is toxic ‘if not used correctly’.
Correctly?
Correctly?
Apparently it can react with the amino acid in your intestines, and turn into Nitrobenzene. Nitrobenzene is carcinogenic, causes serious damage to the central nervous system, can cause liver and kidney damage, internal bleeding and death!
But not to worry – that’s quite rare!!
I’m really looking forward to that bacon sarnie!
Are you?