Long live the full English!
Fancy a full English breakfast? Probably not if you listened to and read the headlines yesterday about the dangers of processed meat. As usual, the public was given a blizzard of bewildering statistics. But what is the risk of eating processed meat and to what extent should we be worried?
Having spent a little while trying to disentangle the statistics, the answer, it seems to us, is that it simply comes down to the old adage of doing things in moderation.
The researchers conducted a huge study involving nearly half a million people across Europe and concluded that there was an association between eating lots of processed meat and early deaths.
They believe that the salt and chemicals used to preserve the meat may damage health leading to cardiovascular disease and cancer.
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One statistic widely used by the media was that the risk of dying was 44 per cent greater for those who eat lots of processed meat. But what does this actually mean?
It seems that this is a comparison between people who ate more than 160g of processed meat a day and those who ate less than 20g.
Those in the former category are tucking away about two sausages and a slice of bacon daily.
Not surprisingly, that turns out not to be healthy and, basically, you are a bit more likely to die than those in the more abstemious group.
Another important point about this study is that it also found that those who consumed large amounts of processed meat were also more likely to do other unhealthy things, such as being overweight and smoking.
The study took this into account and found that more died prematurely than could be accounted for by these other lifestyle factors.
Therefore, the researchers concluded that there was what they call a "moderate positive association between processed meat consumption and mortality".
However, the underlying point is surely that the best approach is to lead a generally healthy lifestyle, taking plenty of exercise and eating a well-balanced diet. In other words, the blindingly obvious.
This leads us to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with a full English. Just not every day.
So we say: long live the great British fry-up!
Comments
by Stoned
Friday, March 08 2013, 5:37PM
“"Not surprisingly, that turns out not to be healthy and, basically, you are a bit more likely to die than those in the more abstemious group."
So if we don't eat two sausages and a slice of bacon daily we're less likely to die.....who'd have thought that immortality would be so easy to achieve?”