"The Palatability of Cancer Prevention"
The most extensive report on diet and cancer in history
is constantly being updated with all the new research.
In their update on colorectal cancer a few years ago, they implicated
various meats including processed meat as a convincing cause
of colorectal cancer, their highest level of evidence, confirmed as a carcinogen
by the World Health Organization more recently.
Effectively meaning beyond a reasonable doubt.
The main message was that the best prevention of colorectal cancer
is the combination of higher physical activity with a fiber-rich
and meat product-poor diet.
A decrease in half a turkey sandwich worth might lower
the total number of colorectal cancer cases by approximately 20%.
There are several implications of this cancer guideline update,
but this paper in the industry publication Meat Science decided to focus
on the consumer side of the story, since in their eyes
every consumer is a patient and vice-versa at some point in the future,
but chronic disease need not be invariably a consequence of aging.
Although the evidence for the relationship between
colorectal cancer risk (at least) and the processed meats intake
cannot be denied, they suggest further research.
For example, let's compare the risk of consuming meat to other risky
practices -- alcohol, lack of physical activity, obesity, smoking.
Compared to lung cancer and smoking, maybe meat wouldn't look so bad.
But consumers probably won't even hear
about the cancer prevention guidelines.
Consumers today are overloaded with information.
It is thus probable that the dissemination of the update on colorectal cancer
drowns out in the information cloud.
And even if the consumers do see it, the meat industry doesn't think they'll much care.
For consumers in the Western world, the role of healthfulness,
while though important, is not close to taste satisfaction
in shaping their final choice of meat and meat products.
It is hence questionable that the revised recommendations
based on the carcinogenic effects of meat consumption
will yield substantial changes in consumer behavior.
And doctors and nutrition professionals feed into this patronizing attitude
that people don't care enough about their health to change.
This classic paper from a leading nutrition journal scoffed at the idea
that people would ever switch to a "prudent diet," reducing their intakes
of animal protein and fat, no matter how much cancer was prevented.
The chances of reducing consumption of fat, protein foods, or indeed of any
food to a significant extent to avoid colon cancer are virtually nil.
Consider heart disease. We know that we can prevent and treat heart disease
with the same kind of diet, but the public won't do it.
"The diet," they say, "would lose too much of its palatability."
The great palatability of ham, in other words,
largely outweighs other considerations,
although health and well-being are increasingly important factors
in consumer decisions.
This 1998 Meat Science article feared that unless meat eating
becomes compatible with eating that is healthy and wholesome,
it will be consigned to a minor role in the diet
in developed countries during the next decade.
Their prediction didn't quite pan out.
Here's meat consumption per person over about the last 30 years:
rising, rising. 1998 was when the Meat Science article was published,
worrying about the next decade of meat consumption,
which rose even further, but then did seem to kind of flatten out,
before it started falling off a cliff.
Meat consumption down about 10% in recent years.
Millions of Americans are cutting down on meat.
So don't tell me people aren't willing to change their diets.
Yet we continue to get diluted guidelines and dietary recommendations
because authorities are asking themselves:
what dietary changes could be acceptable to the public,
rather than just telling us what the best available science says
and letting us make up our own minds about the cancer risk
while feeding ourselves and our families.