3 Responses to Cancer-Causing Chemicals In Processed Meats

1. Bea Elliott commented on May 15th, 2008 at 6:35 am

   Thanx for the reminder…. passing it along to an omni/veg fence sitter - Go Vegan!

2. Joselle Palacios commented on May 15th, 2008 at 7:59 am

   My mother is an oncologist nurse. She sees a lot of head and neck cancer in her practice and quite a few people with these cancers have a diet of processed and smoked or grilled meats. I’ve heard that these cancer causing compounds are NOT created, however, when such plant-based foods as vegetables or tofu are grilled.

   Of course, she also sees plenty of people who never smoked who get lunng cancer. There’s still lots we don’t know about why many people get cancer. But most signs point to a plant-based diet at the very least not adding to our risk.

3. Eccentric Vegan commented on May 15th, 2008 at 4:45 pm

   Yeah, The China Study has some surprising graphs that clearly show the correlation between the consumption of animal products and cancer. There are exceptions to the rule, but they are few and far between. Meat tends to be associated with cancer.

   “In this project, however, I uncovered a dark secret. Children who ate the highest-protein diets were the ones most likely to get liver cancer! They were the children of the wealthiest families.”

   “I then noticed a research report from India that had some very provocative, relevant findings. Indian researchers had studied two groups of rats. In one group, they administered the cancercausing aflatoxin, then fed a diet that was composed of 20% protein, a level near what many of us consume in the West. In the other group, they administered the same amount of aflatoxin, but then fed a diet that was only composed of 5% protein. Incredibly, every single animal that consumed the 20% protein diet had evidence of liver cancer, and every single animal that consumed a 5% protein diet avoided liver cancer. It was a 100 to 0 score, leaving no doubt that nutrition trumped chemical carcinogens, even very potent carcinogens, in controlling cancer.” [...]
   “I decided to start an in-depth laboratory program that
   would investigate the role of nutrition, especially protein, in the development of cancer.”[...]

   “What we found was shocking. Low-protein diets inhibited the initiation of cancer by aflatoxin, regardless of how much of this carcinogen was administered to these animals. After cancer initiation was completed, low-protein diets also dramatically blocked subsequent cancer growth. In other words, the cancer-producing effects of this highly carcinogenic chemical were rendered insignificant by a low-protein diet. In fact, dietary protein proved to be so powerful in its effect that we could turn on and turn off cancer growth simply by changing the level consumed.”[...]
   “But that’s not all. We found that not all proteins had this effect. What protein consistently and strongly promoted cancer? Casein, which makes up 87% of cow’s milk protein, promoted all stages of the cancer process. What type of protein did not promote cancer, even at high levels of intake? The safe proteins were from plants, including wheat and soy.”[...]
   “this project eventually produced more than 8,000
   statistically significant associations between various dietary factors and disease! What made this project especially remarkable is that, among the many associations that are relevant to diet and disease, so many pointed to the same finding: people who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease. Even relatively small intakes of animal-based food were associated with adverse effects. People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease.”

   From The China Study, page 4-6: http://www.thechinastudy.com/PDFs/ChinaStudy_Excerpt.pdf

   (Wow, that was a long quote. I should turn that into a blog post.)

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