Mark Bittman: What's Wrong With What We Eat

Cancer-Causing Food We Serve Up For Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Most of us live a fast paced life that doesn't lend itself to taking to the time to grow our own vegetables, cure our own meat or keep a handful of hens on the back balcony to lay our morning eggs. So trustingly we purchase our bacon and carefully select our unblemished fruit from the local retailer thinking that since it looks so good it must be good.

But beneath that deceptive facade of fancy packaging hides the real truth of what we are actually eating - and it really isn't as healthy as we thought. Some of the food that we ritually buy has been proven to be cancer-causing and that's a scary fact to digest.

The Sunday Fry Up and Lunchtime Hot Dog

Your Sunday breakfast fry up is a favourite way to start the day with the family. Sizzling bacon and sausages in the pan with the bread toasting away and the coffee deliciously brewing on the side. What most of us don't know is that most processed meat including bacon, sausages and hot dogs (meats preserved by smoking, curing or salting) have been linked to an increased risk of colon cancer.

Most processed meat is manufactured with a carcinogenic ingredient called sodium nitrate which is used to turned packaged meats a brighter shade of red so that they look fresh and edible. Research has shown that processed meats increase the risk of pancreatic cancer by 67 percent.

Hot dog sausages should make your hair stand on end (they make mine!) with their mushed up texture and oddly bright colouring . Most hot dogs are made up meat scraps which include off cuts of organs, nerve tissue and even bone pieces (I've previously bitten into hard elements before that had me staring dubiously at the half eaten sausage). If that alone does not have you shuddering then consider this: if little care has been given to what goes into the sausage then little care is taken about where that meat comes from. Most grain fed animals are fed fodder that has probably been laced with antibiotics, hormones and pesticides.

The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) has declared that consumers should stop buying and eating all processed meat products for the rest of their lives. These include bacon, sausage, hot dogs, sandwich meat, packaged ham, pepperoni, salami, and virtually all red meat used in frozen and prepared meals.

Please hold the bacon and sausages with my next Sunday brunch - thanks I'll just eat the toast. Or not. Burnt food has also been proven to be carcinogenic in nature. When food is burnt it creates heterocyclic aromatic amines that are known carcinogens and really crispy toast is suspected of producing this.

I've Got the Snacks - Pass the Remote Please

It's been a long week and come Saturday evening you're looking forward to some couch time with your favourite movie and some yummy snacks. Popcorn is merrily popping away in the microwave while you dispense a packet of chips into a bowl and rummage in the fridge for some fizzy refreshment. It's hard-earned, those calories, and if not you promise to hit the gym on Monday right?

We know it's bad food but most of us are only considering the fattening quality of it and not how harmful these snacky foods are actually for us.

A study from the University of Minnesota found that people who drank as little as two soft drinks a week faced almost double the risk of pancreatic cancer. Dark-colored sodas contain a chemical known as 4-methylimidazole (4-MI), a byproduct of chemical processing used to create the artificial dye that gives these sodas their color, which has been linked to cancer.

Uhmm - pass the water please!

As for those scrumptious potato chips (a personal favourite of mine) - not only are they filled with artery-clogging trans fats, high glycemic carbohydrates, sodium, artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives but there's also another nasty little side to crisps. Cooked at high temperatures to acquire that delicious crunch, which actually causes the formation of a carcinogenic substances called acrylamide, that (can you believe) is also found in cigarettes.

Raw nuts are looking good right now.

Popcorn's finished in the microwave - and this time you've bought the lightly buttered one because it has less calories than the normal butter range. Except, while your popcorn was merrily popping away in its packaging the chemical lining in the bag has just as merrily been vapourizing and absorbing into your popcorn. Not only do manufacturers used a chemical known as perfluoroctanoic acid (PFOA) which may be linked to infertility in humans, but additional chemicals used in the packaging lining have also been linked to causing liver, testicular, and pancreatic cancers. 
 

So, What's For Dinner?

Thinking of doing a pasta for dinner with a tomato sauce, maybe reconsider using the canned tomatoes variety. By now most of us have heard of BPA (bisphenol-A) and seen drinking bottles advertising that they are BPA free but what most of us don't know is that it is present in the lining of our canned goods. Bisphenol-A, a chemical that acts as an estrogen and disrupts hormonal activity in the body. Studies show that BPA has been linked to heart disease, intestinal damage, and infertility and other reproductive issues. But why specifically pick on your canned tomatoes? That's because tomatoes are particularly of concern because they have a high acidity which causes BPA to leach into them. In fact you can get approximately 50cmg of BPA per litre out of a tomato can which is a high enough quantity to impact people, especially children.

We all berate how very little time we have to actually make wholesome meals for ourselves and our families. But consider this - how much of those quick meals we are preparing we slowly stealing away from us our health and in the end our time that we get to spend on this earth? 

Food for thought.

What's Wrong with Parabens?

We've all heard how the chemicals in the products that we use daily are bad for us, but without truly understanding why we will continue to use them with a shrug of our shoulders.

I read an article on the liveeco green living website about what parabens are and to be honest I don't really want to improve my chances of cancer in any way or form.

So what are Parabens?
Parabens are chemical preservatives used in many cosmetic and beauty products. Even some ´organic´ and ´all natural´ products contain parabens, so always read the labels carefully.

Parabens can be found in shampoos, moisturisers, shaving gels, cleansing gels, personal lubricants, topical pharmaceuticals and toothpaste. They are also sometimes used as food additives in certain products. A huge percentage of everyday products contain some form of paraben.

What's so bad about them?
Parabens can mimic the hormone estrogen which is known to play a role in the development of breast cancers and are therefore possibly carcinogenic. A 2004 study published by the Journal of Applied Toxicology found traces of 5 parabens in the breast cancer tumors of 19 out of 20 women studied.

Now that's pause for thought. Often times these chemicals are classified as not harmful because the amount in a bottle of shampoo is not enough to be deemed toxic. But hang on a moment - how often do you wash your hair? I wash mine everyday. Everyday x every year.... that's 10 585 washes. 10 585 times paraben is applied to my scalp. And that's not even including the face washes, face creams, body moisturizers that I apply DAILY.

But if it's on top how can it affect inside?
Parabens are absorbed through the skin directly into the bloodstream and because they are not ingested and subsequently broken down by the liver, these chemicals enter the body at full effect.

Not only do they enter the bloodstream but they also enter the water supply as they wash down the drain! Water treatment plants are unable to remove the parabens from the water and we therefore end up re-ingesting these chemicals and over time the concentration of parabens in our bodies builds up to unhealthy levels.

I don't know about you... but natural alternatives is looking pretty good right now!

The Impossible Climb: Chris Sharma