Chipotle's Simple Story

“The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps” (Proverbs 14:15, The Holy Bible).

Have you seen this Chipotle commercial, an animated feature with accompaniment by Willie Nelson?

Chipotle makes it look like Good vs. Bad is as identifiable as Domestic vs. Industrialized Farming. Stop right there! This is where we need to Think about how we know Good Guys from Bad Guys. First, is it ever fair to make such a blanket statement, to say that local organic farmers are inherently Good, while corporate farmers are inherently Bad? What if the line of Good and Bad were drawn down the heart of every farmer (not to mention everyone), measured out with every decision he or she makes? Let’s “give thought to our steps” here and process what we’ve just watched with "prudent" questioning.

1. Is it bad to fence in a pig? Is it bad to build fences in general? Almost all breeds of livestock were bred by humans that desired for their animals to be dependent on them for protection and food. This keep them from wanting to run away, and the livestock animals we have now are not built for survival in the “wild.” They are genetically wired to be satisfied by the human care they are given, as well as produce milk, meat, and wool to a greater extent than their wild cousins do. That means their nutritional needs are more than what a wild environment can supply. Indeed, fenceless swine farming is widely in practice, far more so than free-ranging cattle. These pigs still roam free and are an absolute menace to the environment, human safety, and agriculture of the southeastern U.S.
2. Is it wrong to build an enclosed, climate-controlled barn for dairy cattle? Visit a dairy. These cows have a sweet life. Remember, unlike humans, animals don’t believe they have a “right” to A/C anyway.
3. Could the space they have be adequate for animal happiness and health, while minimizing the environmental impact and landmass impact of each additional pig? Land is precious here on this planet of 70% water.  See Is the Grass(-Finished Beef) AlwaysGreener? And also Capper, 2009
4. Do pigs really grow in a crate and then fall 2 stories down to an assembly line? Um, no. See these Swine Welfare Research documents if you’re curious about the pork industry, and Hard to Swallow.
5. Are they fed elephantine capsules and given an evil green witch’s brew? Um, no, but antibiotics are used to combat swine illness…see Pork.org’s rationale for antibiotic use and Vive la résistance? (Antibiotics).
6. Do they grow unnaturally large? Do they receive hormones? ARTIFICIAL* HORMONES ARE ILLEGAL IN RAISING PORK. (*artificial = any hormones introduced into an animal's body in addition to ones internally produced)
7. Are they mechanically transformed into meat? Pork is always hand-butchered unless you are consuming a processed product that specifically lists in its ingredients “Mechanically Separated Pork.” 
8. Do they receive drugs? Does green slime get into our water supply? CAFOs and packing plants are stringently regulated and must abide by an oblivion of EPA rules. Free-range farms may allow animals to freely excrete in waterways with far less accountability. See EPA’s CAFO Regulations and the National Resource Conservation Service on livestock operations
9. Does the final halcyon farm scene demonstrate the best relationship between farm animals and people, or can deep care and affection for animals exist in the industrialized scene? See Feedlot, Rediscovered
10. I'm going back to the start...when the ancestors of domesticated pigs roamed free with Adam and Eve on the planet? Can we take 7 billion people with us “back to the start”? See…Capper, 2009  and Organic, Or Not?   
    
11. We are asked to cultivate a better world, but better in what way?…reducing world hunger, reducing environmental impact, increasing the aestheticism of agriculture…? See (Re)Defining the Terms
12. Um, What’s in it for Chipotle?
13. What do you Think?

Easy Beef Dinner

Beef shouldn't be so intimidating to cook. It's inherently flavorful, unlike other meats, so it only requires a little salt, pepper, and heat. Here are some cooking tips for an easy, great beef meal:

• Preheat oven to 350°F

• Take a 2lb SIRLOIN ROAST out of the fridge and let it get to room temperature, giving it 2 - 4 hours to sit out. If it was frozen, let it thaw slowly in the fridge for 2 days. Fast thawing reduces flavor and tenderness.

• Use paper towels to wipe away all the liquids and moisture until quite sticky to the touch. Drying beef like this will allow it to get a nice sharp sear to concentrate the flavors and seal in the juices.

• With a few pinches of salt and pepper, evenly coat the roast. I grabbed some fresh rosemary leaves and rubbed them on as well. 

• Since a roast is nice and lean, coat a roasting pan with a little olive oil and place the roast in it. 

• Meanwhile, I had sliced up 2 scrubbed unpeeled sweet potatoes and mixed them with a few pinches of salt and pepper, about 1/4 cup olive oil, rosemary leaves, and 3 crushed and minced garlic cloves. I spread them out over a cookie sheet.

• Both the roast and the sliced potatoes can go in the oven for 30 minutes.
•  Remove the roast (and the potatoes, too!) from the oven and insert a meat thermometer to a point halfway through at the center of the roast. If it says around 135-140, then perfect! Let it sit for about 10 minutes to cool, distribute the flavors, and continue cooking.  It's cooked to about medium, but the surest way to find out is to start slicing after the resting period. Put it back in the oven for a few more minutes and keep checking on it until it's cooked how you like it. 

• Slice and serve! I also steamed some broccoli...by the way, did you know if you cut a lemon askew from its center, you expose all the pockets of juice and get a more effective squeeze? I love lemon on broccoli! 

A Runner's Menu

In the midst of marathon season, I thought I'd share this quick video featuring a Registered Dietitian and some of my favorite foods, such as:

• Hearty cereals full of iron, fiber and complex carbs
• Leafy greens full of vitamins and fiber
• Potatoes (UNpeeled) and bananas (peeled :) ) for potassium
• Yogurt, milk, salmon and lean BEEF for a full spectrum of essential amino acids to build muscle proteins, along with healthy fats for tissue construction and water retention -- not to mention all kinds of minerals and vitamins that, when contained in animal products are more bio-available (see Hunt, 2003)

My brother and I love the amazing combo of protein-rich Surf & Turf! Plus...Omega 3 fats + Monounsaturated fats = healthy cell membranes!

Subsidize Me

What are government crop subsidies and why all the fuss?

(The following explanation of crop subsidies has been summarized from USDA's 2011 Budget Summary and Annual Perfomance Plan)

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) provides a plethora of financial services to American farmers, including loans, payments, and emergency assistance. Farm credit programs provide loans to those who are unable to receive them from commercial sources. Oftentimes these are minority, women, and beginner farmers. In 2011, $4.7 billion was given by the FSA as direct and guaranteed loans in hopes that the demand for these kind of loans would wane. The FSA funds other programs such as the cotton Boll Weevil Eradication Loan Program to assist farmers whose cotton crops have been decimated by the pest. The funding was reduced from $100 million in 2010 to $60 million in 2011. State Mediation Grants received $4 million to prevent people from losing farms and livelihoods due to controversy. For example, this program aids former tobacco farmers in the transition to non-tobacco crop production. 

The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) funds commodity programs (the subsidies you’re familiar with). It also funds the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) which promotes and sponsors the conservation of soil, water, and land while partnering with private landowners and operators. The 2008 Farm Bill mandates the provisions of CCC commodity programs, but the funding of loans changes year to year depending on market conditions. More loan funding is applied when markets plummet, less loans apply when markets climb. However, direct payments as directed by the 2008 Farm Bill within the commodity programs are based on historical acreage and yields for each commodity. Counter-Cyclical Payments apply when a commodity’s effective price falls below a target price. Fixed Payments are government payments made to farmers that have traditionally produced a crop (e.g., corn) and are paid by the government as if they were producing that crop, but can actually plant whatever other crop they would like, or can allow their land to fallow (fallow means basically planting nothing, it lets the land “rest” while grass and weeds grow where a crop once grew). 

Chart from USDA 2011 Fiscal Year Budget. “USDA Budget Summary 2011. Farm and Foreign Agriculture Services”, Page 33.

The FSA also funds Disaster Assistance Programs to livestock and crop farms that have experienced massive death losses and crop destruction because of adverse weather, drought, fire, and other natural disasters. In summary, U.S. subsidies exist to buffer the financial consequences of market plunges, controversies (i.e., tobacco), and natural disasters for farmers. Subsidies like those for milk production can be designed with the consumer in mind (with the purpose of keeping milk at a low cost, affordable to the poor), but often keep commodities such as grains at a low cost by default – even though the purpose was to support the farmers only.

Critics of subsidies want to blame them for the American obesity epidemic, but it was found by Alston et al., 2008 that world nations which subsidize their crops as much as we do tend to have the lowest obesity issues. Obesity seems to have more to do with being an American than with being a citizen of a nation with crop subsidies. 

Other critics have blamed world food crises on nations that subsidize commodity crops, claiming that the low prices on imported commodities in developing countries make it impossible to compete domestically. Imports of subsidized goods usually snuff out attempts of domestic production, forging a dependency on foreign crops. For example, crop shortages in the U.S. impacts food supplies worldwide. 

Since NAFTA was created in 1994 and the majority of Mexican corn consumption became U.S.-sourced corn rather than Mexican-sourced corn, Mexican corn growers could no longer compete with the cheaper imports. This spurred an exodus of farm workers to the cities to find new work, and the slums around Mexican cities immediately mushroomed. Invariably, NAFTA’s impact on agriculture also encouraged legal (and certainly illegal) immigration of Mexican farm workers who found a new home on American farms. See “NAFTA and U.S. Corn Subsidies: Explaining the Displacement of Mexico’s Corn Farmers” (Relinger, 2010).

  

As taxpayers, what do you Think?

As farmers, what do you Think?

As global citizens, what do you Think?

Because My Baby Likes It

A dietician had just discussed nutritional needs at length with a young mother of an obese, diebetic toddler at a clinic. After the appointment had concluded, the nurse watched the mother reach into her purse and hand her toddler a candy bar, a deep fried chicken nugget, and a bottle of soda from an earlier to-go order. Dismayed, the nurse called the mother over and asked, "Do you remember what we just talked about? Why did you just give him that?" The mother blinked and simply said, "Because my baby likes it."

Jen Johnson Livsey,  a cattlewoman colleague of mine, shared this story with me of her former roommate's disheartening experience as a registered dietician in South Texas. Even after decades of public health education, why the bad choices still? Below are some dietetic studies about what food habits American children and adults make and the complex environments in which they are birthed:

• Diet Quality of American School-Age Children by School Lunch Participation Status: Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999 – 2004. USDA Report No. CN-08-NH, 2008. In this study on the dietary habits of school-aged children, the most concerning issues were that sodium, solid (saturated) fats, and added sugars were being excessively consumed whereas whole fruits, dark green and deep yellow vegetables, legumes, and whole grains were inadequately consumed. Sandwiches, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, pepperoni pizza, whole milk and ice cream were the greatest contributors to the dietary imbalance. Over 90% of children were eating too much salt, and over 70% of children’s diets were considered by dietitians foods “to be consumed only occasionally.”

• The most commonly consumed vegetable was the potato, served fried. What frustrates me about the potato being officially considered a vegetable and not a starch is the misleading information about the mineral, fiber, and vitamin content of potatoes. Most websites that list potato nutrition content will say that the vast majority of nutrients are contained in the skin of the potato, which contains 46% of our needed Vitamin C and 18% of the recommended Potassium intake. It says that nowhere in the National Potato Council website’s nutrition facts! We all know potatoes are usually served, prepared, or eaten without the skins. For a website that can give you access to the nutritional breakdown of nearly all supermarket products, visit The USDA National Nutrient Database.

• Children who were enrolled in the National School Lunch Program (which provides free breakfasts and lunches to children of low income households) consumed higher energy (more sugary, fatty) breakfasts, they were more likely to consume milk, meat, and beans than non-participants, and they were also more likely to consume vegetables, fruits, milk and milk products, and mixed dishes. This makes me think that there is some interplay between being poor and not having financial access to a variety of healthy foods, but also simply being more likely to make a few bad food choices because of a lack of education or because of a lack of parental enforcement. Funding or subsidizing health foods apparently only solves half the problem. 

• McCable-Sellers et al., 2008, in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published the study “Assessment of the diet quality of US adults in the Lower Mississippi Delta”. They found that the prevalence of poverty, as you probably know, and of young households, are both highly associated with obesity and low Healthy Eating Indexes. High HEIs come from high dietary inclusions of whole grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat, and a variety of different foods within those categories. They speculated that the low HEI in poor communities have limited supermarket access, also having less nutritional knowledge to help them identify healthy foods from unhealthy foods. Those who face food insecurity are less likely to include foods that translate to high HEI scores. Non-perishable, thus more affordable, food is more prevalent in the diet, which makes little room for milk, meat, vegetables, etc. Starches, oils, salts and sugars understandably make up the majority of the diet for those that are food-insecure.

• USDA’s June 2006 Report: “Americans Consume Too Many Calories From Solid Fat, Alcohol, and Added Sugar”. Enough said. If only all articles could be as informative as their titles! One thing though, did you know that a gram of fat has 9 calories, a gram of alcohol has 7 calories, and a gram of carbohydrate has 4 calories?

• USDA Agricultural Research Service, 2003. “Trends in Food and Nutrient Intakes by Adolescents in the United States”. Since the late 1970s, adolescents have been increasing their intake of soft drinks, crackers/popcorn/pretzels, French fries, juices, milk, cheese, and candy. Thirty years ago, adolescents were eating more yeast breads and rolls, green beans and peas, corn, beef, and pork. Think of the explosion of food and snack products that have hit the scene since 1977!

• USDA Economic research report “The Impact of Food Away from Home on Adult Diet Quality” by Jessica E. Todd et al. (February, 2010). Eating out increases caloric intake through extra added sugars and fats that restaurants use to overly enhance their food, creating a memorable savory experience. Meanwhile, portion sizes at restaurants are often larger than ones of homemade meals, thus contributing to a customer’s satisfying experience. This study found that on average, eating one meal per week from a restaurant rather than prepared at home corresponds to TWO extra pounds a year! The average meal eaten away from home contains 134 more calories than a meal produced at home.

• A study entitled “How Major Restaurant Chains Plan Their Menus” by Glanz et al. (American Journal of Preventative Medicine, 2007) found, unshockingly, that restaurants only add menu items which are lower in fat or calories (denoted as “healthy choices”) if it favors their profit goals. This only works for restaurants if consumers increase their demand for healthy choices, and for many chains, they are not. However, McDonald’s, Applebees, and other chains have responded to consumer demand for healthier choices and have fared well. In the end, restaurants don’t necessarily lead the way for Americans’ eating habits, rather, they follow them.  

Another friend of mine has begun to care for an impoverished single mother and her children. Since the mother’s car broke down, my friend has been taxiing the family to school and to work. She also makes balanced and nutritious meals for them to have when everyone arrives at home, given that the mother works long shifts and has no time (and not enough money) to make homemade healthy meals. Once one of the children pointed at a dish my friend made and said, “What’s that?” She answered, “Those are vegetables! When my children were young, they couldn’t leave the dinner table until they had eaten all their vegetables!” The child answered, “Will you do that for us?” 

It seems that an interaction of expenses, poor parenting, and lack of education is to blame for the negative eating habits of impoverished Americans. I will also infer that the average American, compared to earlier generations, spends less time at a family dinner table and buys more highly-marketed convenient snack products. I wholeheartedly agree with Michael Pollan and several pop foodies on this specific issue, that food deserves more respect for its role it plays in keeping us alive, healthy, and in communion with one another. Slower, conversation-filled eating has a comeback to make in our culture.

I hope to see and be a part of more intervention in broken, struggling, homes to restore intentionality and discipline (e.g., nightly TV-free family dinners and the command to "Eat your vegetables!") and integrity to family structures (monogamous couples who share child support and workload burdens). With that, I believe we can work miracles in all aspects of a child's life, beyond just the diet. As another aside, I do not believe that taxing or banning certain foods which the government deems "unhealthy" is the way to resolve the obesity issues of poor communities. Such nannying (or Big Brother-ing) is ridiculous. My own mother should be telling me to eat my vegetables and to quit eating junk, not the government. 

Alas, to a struggling young mother, so what if a meal is unhealthy if “my baby likes it”? What do you Think?

Eat your vegetables!

I taught in a public high school for three years before entering agricultural and nutritional graduate studies. In our school cafeteria, a wide array of cooked and raw fresh vegetables was made available to kids. Vegetables were always stationed at the beginning of the buffet line, which coiled around a salad bar. Over and over again, students omitted vibrant green and red colors in order to arrange various shades of white and brown foods on their plates. French fries were a daily staple, often (but sometimes not) accompanied with a side of some sort of breaded or bunned meat.

I found this NYT article to be interesting, entitled “Told to Eat Its Vegetables, America Orders Fries.” Despite millions of dollars and hoards of effort to the contrary, Americans are still undereating vegetables and overeating starches and simple sugars. (2-3 daily servings of meat is actually the only American Dietetics Association recommendation that is properly adhered to by the average American, per a conversation with Stacey Bates, former R.D. for the Texas Beef Council). The proceeding article in Food, Think! will focus more in depth on the American diet and decision-making, but today's article will be about why the order to “Eat your vegetables!” is truly sound advice. 

Vegetables have 4 main benefits (main sources from ADA's website, www.eatright.org): 

1. Antioxidants (Vitamins A, C, E & Flavinoids such as color pigments like red lycopene): These compounds are meant in plants to be absorptive of intense energy, such as sunlight. In the human body, they control the reactivity of dangerous compounds such as free radicals that may alter DNA to induce cancerous growth. Several studies have suggested a strong relationship between phytonutrient intake and cancer prevention: Jeffery, E.H., et al. (2006). Diet and cancer prevention: current knowledge and future direction; Lemonick, M.D. (July 19, 1999). "Diet and cancer: can food fend off tumors?"; Go V.L. et al., (December 2004). "Diet and cancer prevention: evidence-based medicine to genomic medicine". Journal of Nutrition; "Diet And Cancer Prevention: New Evidence For The Protective Effects Of Fruits And Veggies". ScienceDaily. December 7, 2007.
2. B-Vitamins & Folate: essential for growth and creation of new cells and fighting disease. 
3. Minerals: Calcium strengthens bones and necessary for muscle contraction. It also signals for many cell processes; Iron is necessary for oxygen transport within the body; Magnesium is an essential component of most bodily enzymes which mechanize all sorts of bodily functions; Potassium regulates blood pressure, helps maintain fluid and nutrient equilibrium in almost all cells, among other benefits. 
4. Fiber: Vegetables offer two types of fiber, soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber, or pectin, dissolves in the digestive tract into a gelatinous matrix...probiota feast on it within the digestive tract. Insoluble fiber, like soluble fiber, cannot be digested by human digestive enzymes, and stays intact until it reaches the colon where it is also a food source for probiota. 

Soluble Fiber: Our bodies use internal cholesterol to create bile, which is a kind of detergent that is released into the intestine to break down fat, making them possible for absorption. The matrix that soluble fiber forms in the intestine actually traps bile and the fats they transport, preventing the body's reabsorption and recycling of cholesterol, and also the absorption of the fats they carry. This is why oatmeal, having 2 of the 3 recommended daily grams of soluble fiber, is so famous for lowering cholesterol!

Insoluble Fiber: Because of its abrasive, pipe-cleaning effects, insoluble fiber reduces hemorrhoids, provides a vehicle for bodily wastes, and cleanses any harmful substances that adhere to the inside of the colon. Many studies (below) suggest that the benefits of insoluble fiber work to reduce the incidence of colon and rectal cancers by eliminating damaged cells, cleansing the tract from harmful substances, and promoting the growth of new cells. When probiota break down and ferment insoluble fiber in the colon, a metabolic byproduct (a Volatile Fatty Acid, particularly) is released called Butyrate. Butyrate stimulates growth of new, healthy epithelial (colon-lining) cells. Here area few studies that provide a possible link between insoluble fiber and cancer prevention: Trock et al., (April 1990). "Dietary fiber, vegetables, and colon cancer: critical review and meta-analyses of the epidemiologic evidence". Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Lanza et al., (1992). "Dietary fiber". Micozzi and Moon (1992). Macronutrients: Investigating their role in cancer.

I’m going to make sure my plate is colored with plenty of vegetables this Thanksgiving. What do you Think?

Meat and Cancer: Not Guilty.

The Union of Concerned Scientists from Johns Hopkins University was the likely little bird that suggested…er, claimed... a relationship between red meat and cancer. Let’s give their statement a little context first about how scientific promulgations are transmitted to mainstream society.

Say this news headline appeared in the paper: Norway at peace for the 66^th consecutive year. Would you frantically rush to grab yourself a copy?

Imagine a world conference on nutrition and health has been called by scientists studying several different foods as risk factors for cancer. The agenda might look something like this:

• ·         No relative risk shown from consumption of conventional vs. organic orange juice
• ·         No effect of turkey vs. chicken consumption on cancer cell development
• ·         Does consuming expeller-pressed rather than extracted canola oil increase risk for cancer? (No)

…you stop reading the agenda here because you begin to suffer a severe case of boredom.

We all know that good news is no news. Publication bias, when something is less likely to be published if it is inconclusive or simply affirms the status quo, exists in the science world just as it does in journalism. Have you seen this message in fine print, usually following an asterisk on a milk carton: "FDA states: No significant difference in milk from cows treated with artificial growth hormones.”  However, it’s a lot more exciting as a consumer to buy milk that’s labeled “rBST Free!” “Milk from cattle not receiving artificial hormones!”…and we assume from these messages that rBST is guilty of making our milk less healthy, while ignoring the FDA’s dry statement (which deserves its own exclamation point!).

As we return to today’s topic of red meat and cancer, keep in mind that scientists hardly know what causes cancer, or even how it is caused. Several carcinogens are known to be found at the crime scene, but the direct culprits are often mysterious. I have seven meta-analytical studies (which compile data from dozens to hundreds of studies to make more powerful, broader claims since the sample populations are bigger) and, to spoil their ending for you, they all are either inconclusive or conclude with no association between red meat and cancer.

That’s good news for me, since my mother had breast cancer and I still get to enjoy all the beef and lamb I like. If you’re still curious and want to read the summaries of these studies, by all means, continue!
 

Alexander et al., 2010 “A review and meta-analysis of red and processed meat consumption and breast cancer”

A meta-analysis that examined over 25,000 cases of breast cancer compared cohorts of high red or processed meat consumption with cohorts of low red or processed meat.  It was found that “no association was observed in the fixed-effects meta-analysis of processed meat intake and breast cancer” and “No significant association between the highest category of red meat intake compared with the lowest category of intake and breast cancer was observed”. Many hypotheses such as cooked and overcooked meat by-products (heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), haem Fe from blood consumption, or hormones from eating meat (mammary glands have very sensitive hormone receptors) course through the halls of academia, but significant evidence to prove them has not been garnered in experimentation—if it has, the opposite has been demonstrated within an equal amount of other studies. For more information on heterocyclic amines, see the Addendum at bottom. 

Alexander et al., 2010 “A review and meta-analysis of prospective studies of red and processed meat intake and prostate cancer”

Fifteen studies of red meat and eleven studies of processed meat were analyzed to result in a lack of supportive evidence for a correlation between dietary increments of red meat or processed meat and prostate cancer. The idea that the more meat eaten, the more at risk the person was for cancer, was not supported by the results. Circulating hypotheses for an increased incidence of prostate cancer include higher fat intake in the diet, but this also remains unproven in several studies that have taken place. In fact, high lycopene (from red pigment in fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes) and selenium (from meat) intake may reduce the risk of prostate cancer…so pour that ketchup on your burgers, people!

Alexander and Cushing, 2010 “Red meat and colorectal cancer: a critical summary of prospective epidemiologic studies”

This paper reviewed studies of European cohorts and Asian cohorts, and found no evidence that independently connected red meat to colon or rectal cancer. Red meat can’t be isolated as a cause especially because many competing factors that obscure the causes of cancer exist in the general Western lifestyle: the diet, to name one potential factor besides activity level and others, is typically high in refined sugars, starches, and alcohol, and low in fruits, vegetables, soluble and insoluble fiber.  It was found that men are 10 – 30% more likely to contract colorectal cancer than women are, but it was found to have nothing to do with men consuming more red meat than women do. In fact, a few recent studies demonstrate that red meat fats like conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and stearic acid (an 18 carbon saturated fatty acid) are anti-carcinogenic, but further studies need to be conducted in order to continue isolating these factors for their cancer-preventative benefits (Bhattacharya et al., 2006; Evans et al., 2009; Evans et al., 2009).

Alexander et al., 2010 “Processed meat and colorectal cancer: a quantitative review of prospective epidemiologic studies”

Salt, sugar, nitrates, nitrites, phosphate, and spices are all used to cure meat and preserve them against contamination by pathogens. Smoke from wood or liquid smoke flavorings may introduce polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as mentioned above in the other Alexander et al., 2010 article, but nitrates and nitrites remain the largest concern, since they have shown to produce cancer in some laboratory animal studies. As mentioned in the July post “Doubtful Dining”, vegetables contain the highest concentrations of all nitrate food sources, next to some cheeses, beers, and whiskeys. The results of this study were similar to the above study regarding red meat, where the isolated variable of red meat could not be associated with colorectal cancer. Again, men were found to be about 30% more likely than women to develop the cancer, regardless of processed meat inclusion in the diet.

Alexander and Cushing, 2009 “Quantitative assessment of red meat or processed meat consumption and kidney cancer”

Again, processed meat and red meat were not shown to be risk factors for kidney cancer; however, obesity and smoking were significant risk factors.

Alexander et al., 2009 “Meta-analysis of animal fat or animal protein intake and colorectal cancer”

Over 1,000 cases of colorectal cancer were analyzed in this study. When comparing high animal fat (more than 50g) daily intake and low animal fat (less than 25g) intake on cancer risk, neither group significantly differed in their relative risk. The same inconclusive result was found for increased increments of fat (~10g increments) and for incremental percentages of energy coming from animal fats. It should be pointed out that the study did not specify the source of the animal fat or what percentages were saturated and unsaturated. If saturated fat from animals were tested, the results would be confounded between whether the fact that It was saturated OR from an animal was the problem. The study included fats from mammals, birds, and fishes. Interestingly, a systematic review from 2005 could not produce consistent evidence for Omega 3’s to reduce colorectal cancer (Maclean et al., 2006).

Alexander et al., 2010 “Summary and meta-analysis of prospective studies of animal fat intake and breast cancer”

It was found that women are more likely to develop breast cancer than men (….still paying attention? Just checking). This study compiled results from 8 other studies on 200 – 7,000 breast cancer cases. It reported that once differences in demographic, ethnic, lifestyle, and diet factors were held even, animal fats did not impact the risk for developing cancer. Perhaps saturated fats or unsaturated fats could still be involved in cancer development, but it is clear that an animal source is no different than a vegetarian source.

I have an Addendum about carcinogenic compounds in overcooked meats...

When pan-fried, smoked, or flame-cooked, meats can form heterocyclic amines which are a known to be carcinogenic. Read more about it on cancer.gov ‘s webpage. Two sentences of note to me were “the doses of HCAs and PAHs used in these studies [observing cancerous growth in lab rats] were very high—equivalent to thousands of times the doses that a person would consume in a normal diet.” and “Population studies have not established a definitive link between HCA and PAH exposure from cooked meats and cancer in humans” (only a correlation has been established).

What do you Think?