10 Hateful Facts about Processed Meat

6. Processed meat is addictive.

It is a well-understood phenomenon about how often we crave those hot dogs and our beloved bacon. There’s a reason for it because they are supposed to leave you with craving. With certain additives and flavorings, processed meats stimulate the release of dopamine in brain, a feel-happy neuro-transmitter that activates your brain just like any recreational drug would do. Journalist Michael Moss told us more about this in his book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us.

“Some of the largest companies are now using brain scans to study how we react neurologically to certain foods, especially to sugar. They’ve discovered that the brain lights up for sugar the same way it does for cocaine.”

7. Processed meats are a road to chronic diseases.

Many studies have been conducted to find the route from processed meats to chronic disease, and they have been successful in finding links with the following diseases:

• Hypertension
• Multiple heart condition
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• Gastrointestinal cancers

Many other studies have been of following conclusion that it increases the risk of:

• Cancer of the urinary bladder by 50 percent
• Cancer of the stomach by 38 percent
• Cancer of the large bowel by 50 percent
• Cancer of the pancreas by 6 percent
• Type 2 diabetes by 50 percent

8. Processed meat makes you feel tighter in your clothes.

Or in other words, it increases the amount of fat in your body. If in any case it hasn’t been cleared by now that processed meats are full of fats and other unhealthy ingredients, it should be cleared by now.

9. Processed meat alters acids in your stomach.

Processed meat creates some unhealthy changes in stomach’s acidic medium with its unnatural ingredients and processes. Now that should be the major reason of acidity and the growth in the sales of antacids these days.

10. Processed meat doesn’t give you enough proteins, but cancer.

It is now quite evident from the above facts about processed food that it doesn’t contain the most-healthy ingredients and the processes which they go through obviously denatures the protein in it and convert into a cancer precursor nitrosamine.

We conclude that……….

The message that you should be taking home today is to make healthier eating choices. On top of it is to consume more and more fruits and vegetables. Unless you are not an addict of meat you should consume fresh red meat almost 3 times per week to give your body enough amount of animal protein. On the other hand, if you are addicted to processed meat you should totally consider about switching to a vegetarian diet.

“Studies are confirming the health benefits of meat-free eating. Nowadays, plant-based eating is recognized as not only nutritionally sufficient but also as a way to reduce the risk for many chronic illnesses.” – Harvard Medical School

“Appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.” (Journal of the American Dietetic Association, July 2009)

We hope that this article would be helpful for its readers. If you felt guilty while reading this article, how about a positive change in lifestyle now?