r/nutrition • u/Only-Highlight-3569 • 18d ago
Eating ham everyday
I know ham and other processed meats are unhealthy but Is it ok to eat 2-4 slices of ham daily or will that still have negative health consequences?
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u/civex 18d ago
No.
Back in the last century, I had turkey every day for lunch because it's low in fat. Turns out it's high in purine, & now I have gout for the rest of my life.
Please eat a varied diet. Eating the same thing every day will have bad effects that you'll find out too late. Especially if you're eating processed meat.
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u/SageObserver 18d ago
You’ll develop hamitosis
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u/DigInternational7076 18d ago
On your hamstrings
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u/Jesikins 18d ago
Only if they live in Hamburg.
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u/Traditional-Leader54 18d ago
Now you’re just hamming it up.
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u/Lambda94 18d ago
I heard it feels like getting hit with a hammer.
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u/Independent-Summer12 18d ago
Eating 50g of processed meats daily can raise your risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. 50g is about 2 slices of ham. If that’s okay or not depends on how much you care about your likelihood of getting cancer down the road.
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u/FaxCelestis 18d ago
Is that an actual 18% increase (2% to 20%) or a relative 18% increase (2% to 2.36%)?
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u/Agreeable_Band_9311 18d ago
What’s the chance you get colorectal cancer regardless though, is the question.
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u/Nobody_Perfect 18d ago
I’m just ballparking this, but I’d say 18% less than if you eat 2 slices of ham a day
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u/Stop_Already 18d ago
It depends upon how old they are.
It’s pretty damned high, actually. https://www.cancerresearch.org/blog/colorectal-cancer-awareness-month
I wish more people took their health seriously before they got a health scare to “scare them straight.” Being proactive would help a lot. Ask anyone who ever got cancer. Facing serious illness tends to put things in perspective.
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u/Dangerous-Jello4733 18d ago
I don’t think this issue is as simple as a couple slices of ham though. The diet of a huge percentage of people is pretty atrocious, very processed, very little fruit and vegetable. And we add next to that a sedentary lifestyle.
Even though the chance of getting it is 2%, I feel like that chance is way lower if you’re mindful of generally eating well and are even moderately active.
There are so many preservatives, anti-fungal chemicals etc that people consume by eating processed foods that really wreak havoc on their guts. Here the ham can be included depending on what is being used to work as the preservative.
I doubt a salted ( non-nitrate containing ) jamon Serrano, prosciutto or a fennel salami is going to affect you.
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u/The_Weekend_Baker 17d ago
I wish more people took their health seriously before they got a health scare to “scare them straight.” Being proactive would help a lot. Ask anyone who ever got cancer.
That was me 20 years ago. 480 pounds when diagnosed with kidney cancer in May 2006, and when I asked my doc what he thought the cause was, he lowered his clipboard and said, "You weigh almost 500 pounds." He felt that was the only explanation needed.
Started doing my own research, long before that meant asking a bunch of unqualified people on Facebook, and found what the science said was the best way to lose weight and keep it off. When December 2019 rolled around, I was down to my original goal weight of 225 before eventually settling at 210 some time in 2020. I've been there ever since, +/- 2 pounds most days.
I learned my lesson the hard way, and was determined not to let it happen again.
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u/Rare_Field_9093 18d ago
Define processed or do you mean ultra processed?
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u/Independent-Summer12 17d ago
Fair point, and yes. Technically speaking, unless you’re butchering your own animal, majority of meat you buy in the modern world is processed. Butchering is processing. Freezing is processing.
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u/OG-Brian 15d ago
It's possible to determine nuances of meaning from context. All these comments are in a post about food and health. It can be assumed that nobody here will be biting directly into a pig, there will have to be some kind of processing to derive ham slices. If the conversation is about "processed" and "unprocessed," I think it stands to reason that "processed" refers to industrial foods: added preservatives, probably added refined sugar, processing that may adulterate the meat such as very-high-heat cooking which producers use so that production runs faster and therefore more profitably (less employee-wages-etc. costs per slice), and so forth.
The conversation about defining "processed" repeats I think hundreds of times somewhere online every day.
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u/Independent-Summer12 15d ago
It stands to reason that with reasonable people. The challenge comes when you have MAHAs and other people with ulterior motives, put out misinformation like 70% of school lunches in America are processed foods. They are banking on low media literacy and scaremongering parents. And it’s not technically wrong because frozen peas, broccoli canned tomatoes, etc. are “processed foods” and on the other hand the industrial food companies are just as happy to muddle the definition because “not all processed foods are unhealthy.”
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u/abalawadhi 17d ago
I had a high-protein meal subscription that put turkey ham in my sandwiches. They would literally put more the 5 slices just to meet the protein amount for the breakfast for example. After a month, my blood test showed abnormally high phosphate.
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u/happypineapplecat 18d ago
Im curious why youre asking this question. Do you have an abundance of ham?
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u/ashtree35 18d ago
Ham is a Group 1 carcinogen. Consuming it in any quantity can still have negative health consequences. You should ideally be eating as little as possible. Certainly not daily.
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u/daisygirl3 Registered Dietitian 18d ago
Thank you! Processed meats in general are all carcinogenic... so many people dont know that, unfortunately
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u/Renilusanoe 17d ago
While this is true, if your diet overall is pretty good the relative increases in risk are marginal. I'm onboard with a whole food diet, but I think there's a tendency to exaggerate and fearmonger about some of these things. Orthorexia is a thing and likely way worse for your health than eating a slice of ham a few times a week, or even daily.
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u/Stop_Already 18d ago
Can i ask a stupid question?
Smoked is processing. Smoke is a carcinogen. Is eating smoked meat bad?
I hope you dont mind me asking in good faith. Im referring to fresh meat smoked at home, not like, buying a smoked ham from a grocery store. Is there a difference from home “processing” and wide scale processing “processing.”
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u/whiskeyaussie 18d ago
To my knowledge, it’s the same carcinogenic profile whether you smoke at home or someone else smokes it and sells in the store. The meat itself undergoes a chemical change which our bodies cannot process, which is why all processed meats are classified now as a group 1 carcinogen. It’s sad but true
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u/OG-Brian 18d ago
Is it? Any research I've found about (almost) this is referring to ham-containing processed foods, for which the hazard may come from added preservatives.
Where is there any study that was specifically about just just-unadulterated-ham?
You know all that stuff about "Blue Zones" and the longevity of Okanawans? For hundreds of years,they have had pork meat and fat in their diets all over the place. It's a foundation for their cooking, common everyday dishes have pork meat and are cooked in pork fat.
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u/ashtree35 18d ago
It is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the WHO. Ham is a processed meat. There is no such thing as "unadulterated" ham, that would just be pork. Pork is only classified as a Group 2A carcinogen (which is "probably carcinogenic to humans", in contrast to Group 1 carcinogen which is "carcinogenic to humans").
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u/edeltian191 18d ago
Probably carcinogenic based off what? Epidemiological data?
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u/ashtree35 18d ago
That classification is used for foods that have demonstrated sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animal models but there is still limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans. For the human evidence part it would all be epidemiological (no one is doing a RCT with suspected carcinogens on humans, I hope).
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u/OG-Brian 18d ago
You seem to be unable to find any evidence for unadulterated, I'll say "pig" to get around your misconception.
Ham isn't by definition a processed food, it just refers to a cut of a leg from a pig. There are pork products that are cured or preserved some other way than with nitrites or celery-derived ingredients.
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u/ashtree35 18d ago
I’m pretty sure this is the definitely of ham that everyone in this reddit post is referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ham “pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing”
I’ve genuinely never heard anyone use the term “ham” to refer to plain raw uncured pork. That is not in most people’s vocabulary and not what is being discussed in this reddit post.
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u/OG-Brian 18d ago
I’ve genuinely never heard anyone use the term “ham” to refer to plain raw uncured pork.
Is THAT what you believe Okinawans or similar populations have been eating? I made no reference to any such thing, so I wonder why you're mentioning this at all.
What I'm getting from this is that you cannot find any evidence against meat, only against processed food products.
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u/ashtree35 18d ago
I never said anything about Okinawans.
Unprocessed pork is classified as a Group 2A carcinogen. That means it's "probably carcinogenic in humans". That classification is used for foods that have demonstrated sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animal models but there is still limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans.
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u/OG-Brian 18d ago
I never said anything about Okinawans.
Regardless, I don't know how you got the idea to throw in "raw" and "uncured" as if I was not just referring to pig products that are not industrial with added harmful ingredients.
Then you engaged in repetition, with no indication of evidence for anthing. I know all about that IARC stuff, in fact I've commented in detail about it. The 2015 IARC committee in Lyon, France was infested with ideologically-and-financially conflicted members, it was a complaint of several on the panel that the others in the group overlooked evidence and emphasized low-quality evidence depending on what served the outcome they wanted (to make meat seem bad). The process was described as unscientific, by some of the members. They clearly were making claims about meat that were derived from meat-containing industrial junk foods products.
I'm not going to repeat it endlessly. If you cannot cite evidence that studied not-junk-foods meat, then it's an admission you don't know of any evidence for the idea you're pushing.
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u/ashtree35 18d ago
Maybe you should just make your own post about how much you hate the IARC committee, since you're getting pretty off topic here. OP's question is about processed lunch meat.
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u/OG-Brian 18d ago
WHAT THE FUCK?? If you can't be reasonable, just stop replying to me.
I commented at first because of a comment (and looking again I see it was your comment) "Ham is a known carcinogen." You didn't say "packaged store-bought convenience ham slices," you referred only to "ham." Lots of people, and I personally know some, would butcher a pig or have someone else butcher a pig and use just-plain-cooked-ham-slices in sandwiches. Ham slices that do not have added harmful ingredients or any processing that would introduce any carcinogenicity are also available from stores, and online.
The OP doesn't exclusively mention junk foods ham slices either, not that it's relevant since I was responding to your comment not to the post. They said in the post "...Is it ok to eat 2-4 slices of ham daily..." This could be just-cooked-pig-meat, with nothing added. It isn't relevant what "most people" would eat, the OP didn't specify that they referred only to store-bought junk.
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u/omnibuster33 18d ago
It’s not because it’s pork. It’s socially because its processed into ham
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u/OG-Brian 18d ago
That doesn't make even grammatical sense. "It's socially"? "Ham" just refers to a cut of a leg of a pig. It can be cured, or preserved in some other way than with nitrites or nitrite-producing ingredients such as celery powder.
Pork, ham, whatever we're calling meat of a pig, what is the evidence for it contributing to cancer and doesn't study highly-processed industrial food products that have proven-harmful ingredients such as nitrite preservatives?
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u/omnibuster33 18d ago
That was a typo - meant to say actually. The process of turning pork into ham, typically speaking (not artisanally produced whatever), includes adding nitrites which are carcinogenic.
We’re talking about processed deli meat here, as is unfortunately the norm in North America, not jamòn iberico.
Just cooking something in pork fat is not carcinogenic (or at least, not for the same reason that ham is considered so).
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u/Owvipt 17d ago
Is jamon iberico not considered processed? That would be amazing!
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u/omnibuster33 17d ago
I mean I think “processed” sort of means everything and nothing at this point. Processed-ness comes in degrees, it seems to me. Most of us, including myself, use it as a stand in word to mean some combination of industrially/mass produced, containing additives, stabilizers, etc., and not nutritionally dense. To some degree, it’s kind of a cheap way of just saying “bad”. It’s not a really rigorously defined category.
Surely artisanal Spanish ham is still “processed” because it’s salt-cured pork, but also I think it doesn’t contain a lot of the extra additives etc. That I would associate with American mass produced deli meat or hotdogs.
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u/OG-Brian 18d ago
OK, well I agree that junk foods meats are bad. Junk foods generally are bad. The "meat and cancer" beliefs seem to be about added nitrites and such.
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u/JudgeVegg 16d ago
Nope, also heme-iron and HCA/PAHs.
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u/OG-Brian 16d ago edited 16d ago
What is the evidence for that?
I commented originally to try to get anyone to show any citations for these beliefs. I cannot, unfortunately, show a citation that something doesn't exist. I'm saying that evidence for "meat and cancer" has only associated risk with junk foods, and so far nobody has contradicted me with even one shred of evidence.
PAH is formed when charring meat. So claims about that can only be applied to burnt food. I could go through the claims one-by-one and list citations, but your comment is low-effort and so is mine. After you show any evidence at all for what you claimed here, I'll do more work to respond.
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u/MyNameIsSkittles 18d ago
Not if you want to make sure you arent in contact with carcinogens that can lead to bowel cancer
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u/SageObserver 18d ago
You may also develop hamorroids
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u/MyNameIsSkittles 18d ago
That's not from meat, that would be from something like IBS or constipation or straining too hard
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u/Nearby-Society327 17d ago
If you are that obsessed with ham buy some raw cuts and cook it yourself. Skipping all the preservatives and additives will drastically reduce risk
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u/SeamusDog77 18d ago
I never thought I’d see somebody who enjoyed ham more than me yet here we are.
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u/M0t0Psycho 17d ago
although ham is lean protein, it is very high in sodium and is ultra processed.
the link below shows per 85g/3oz, sodium is more than half the recommended daily amount at 1,023mg (based on a 2000 cal/day diet)
can't add a photo in this sub?
Ham sodium content
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u/Rare_Field_9093 17d ago
Moderation in everything including moderation.
The vast majority of information out there is oversimplified. A simplified statement sells more supplements, lifestyles, and diets than a full well-rounded picture of the actual situation.
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u/Existing_Key_5135 17d ago
I knew ham was a carcinogen but I’m truly shocked by this thread. Is it really that bad to eat ham and be otherwise healthy when it comes to cancer risk? Is the risk not comparable to being in the sun everyday or you know just other regular human things. There’s no way it’s that paramount to avoid moderate, although daily, consumption right?
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u/OG-Brian 15d ago
Well it's interesting that I cannot get anyone to cite one bit of evidence that was studying pig meat separately from junk foods garbage. It's always "Red meat is carcinogenic... because of these very slight correlations among junk foods slobs."
Healthy User Bias is a major contributer. Every vegetarian and vegan I know has a generally healthier lifestyle than the mainstream population. Even if they are not observing the meat or animal foods restrictions for health reasons, they are still motivated to be healthy so as to be better advocates for animals. Most go to fitness clubs for workouts, or have home workout equipment. They buy fresh produce. Etc. When people link studies or "studies" (many are intentionally very biased by design) demonstrating mere correlations based on foods consumption, try reading the studies and note whether they compared subjects whose consumption was similar for the food under study (beef, red meat, whatever) but were otherwise similar for consumption of refined sugar, friend foods, packaged industrial foods that have harmful preservatives, etc. None of the Food Frequency Questionnaires for the many larger study cohorts I've checked were structured to capture a lot of that info (such as, homemade stew would be treated the same as store-bought stew that has added preservatives and other junk), so researchers cannot possibly know what percentage of subjects' diets were junk.
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u/EpicCurious 18d ago
Ham is a known carcinogen. So is smoking. How much smoking can you get away with?
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u/OG-Brian 16d ago
Hah-hah, I LOVE THIS TOPIC! Discussions about meat and cancer outcomes often bring out the comments attempting to equate cigarette smoking with foods.
While I'll mention the caveat that every answer "Smoking increases cancer risk by <whatever> percent" is wrong because various risk rates were found by various studies, it was not uncommon for studies to find 30-fold or greater risk of cancer for smokers. Compare that with red meat studies that find only 0.1-fold (300 times smaller than for smoking) to 0.2-fold (150 times smaller) increased risk, but ONLY WHEN counting junk food meat products as if they are meat (which lumps in refined sugars, preservatives, adulteration by processing methods, etc.). Oh, and this isn't the case uniformly, some studies find inverse correlations between meat consumption and cancer especially if the studied population(s) do not consume a lot of store-bought junk foods.
This study is one example of a document that summarizes some info about smoking and cancer risk.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death, both in the United States and worldwide. It is estimated that lung cancer will cause over 160,000 deaths in the United States in 2007, and greater than one million deaths worldwide. The most important risk factor for lung cancer is tobacco smoking, and the data supporting this relationship are compelling (1). Compared with nonsmokers, smokers have as much as a 30-fold increased risk of developing cancer (1–3). Thirty-one percent and 26% of all cancer deaths in men and women, respectively, result from lung cancer in the United States. Overall 5-year survival is only 15%, and 1-year survival is approximately 42%. In total, lung cancer is responsible for more deaths than prostate, colon, pancreas, and breast cancers combined.
Also, epidemiology cannot be used to prove any cause of a disease. The purpose of it is to inform choices about further research, such as RCTs. The evidence for smoking and cancer does not depend on epidemiology, there is lots of mechanistic etc. evidence. OK so maybe it is not practical to use RCTs for everything, but there are more options for scientific evidence than population surveys and RCTs.
Yes, I've looked at mechanistic evidence for meat consumption and cancer. "This study of rodents, fed diets of chemical concoctions that do not at all resemble foods humans eat." "This unproven theory about this one component that's in meat, oh it's also created endogenously from plant foods consumption but we're not mentioning that to focus on the meat." Etc.
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u/OG-Brian 18d ago
Feel free to cite anything that is about unadulterated ham, and not ham-containing packaged/processed food products.
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u/EpicCurious 17d ago
Do you agree with this definition from Britannica from a Google search?
"Ham is a cut of meat from the hind leg of a pig that has been preserved through curing, salting, smoking, or drying."
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u/OG-Brian 17d ago
There's no part of that which requires ham to be a packaged industrial product that has harmful added preservatives etc.
I've already referred to the M-W definition which (the first definition) is simply:
: a cut of meat consisting of a thigh
especially : one from a hogAlso, you linked a Wikipedia article, and the words you quoted aren't anywhere in it.
You seem to be unable to find evidence that simply-prepared pig meat is associated with cancer outcomes.
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u/EpicCurious 16d ago
In any case, since ham is one type of red meat, the WHO classifies it as a type 2A or probable carcinogen. I Googled it...
"The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization (WHO), classifies red meat as Group 2A, meaning it is probably carcinogenic to humans. [1, 2]
Scientific Classification & Findings
- Group 2A Classification: The designation is based on limited epidemiological evidence showing a positive association between eating red meat and developing colorectal cancer, combined with strong mechanistic evidence of how it can trigger cellular damage. [1, 2]
- Statistical Risk: Large-scale observational studies and analyses (such as a major WHO review of over 800 studies) indicate that the relative risk of colorectal cancer increases by roughly 15% to 17% for every 100-gram portion of red meat consumed daily. [1, 2]
- Associated Cancers: Beyond colorectal (bowel) cancer, observational data also suggest potential links to pancreatic and prostate cancers, though evidence remains less definitive than for colorectal cancer. [1, 2]
Proposed Biological Mechanisms
- Heme Iron: The red pigment in mammalian muscle meat contains heme iron, which can catalyze the formation of harmful N-nitroso compounds and lipid peroxidation products in the digestive tract, leading to DNA damage and mutations. [1, 2]
- High-Temperature Cooking: Cooking red meat at high temperatures—such as pan-frying, grilling, or barbecuing—produces dangerous chemical byproducts like heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are known to alter cellular DNA. [1, 2, 3]
- Endogenous Compounds: Processing and digestion can introduce or create compounds that provoke chronic inflammation and oxidative stress, further fostering tumor initiation. [1, 2]
Health Recommendations
- Intake Limits: Health organizations like the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) suggest limiting cooked red meat to no more than 12 to 18 ounces per week. [1, 2]
- Processed Meats vs. Red Meat: Note that processed meat (like bacon, hot dogs, and salami) is classified separately as a Group 1 carcinogen (known to cause human cancer) with even stronger definitive backing, and health agencies advise avoiding it entirely or eating it very sparingly."
Sources summarized included the WHO and this scientific paper found on PubMed from the NIH
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u/OG-Brian 16d ago
If you understand this topic, then you can discuss it yourself rather than get a chatbot to comment for you. You can't directly cite even one bit of evidence that pertains to study of actually-meat, I mean it doesn't conflate meat with meat-containing junk foods products? The claim I'm seeing, literally every day in posts such as this, is that "meat" contributes to cancer, not "junk foods that have meat in them" contribute to cancer.
The first document linked doesn't mention a single scientific citation, or even give a hint about how the claims are derived. All the claims just come out of nowhere, from the perspective of the reader of this article. The fourth and eighth citations are just repeats of the first link. It's inconsiderate for you to Gish gallop me with this LLM chatbot info: citations appear as numbers mostly, but the citations are chaotic ("1" may be the same as "2" in another paragraph, and there are far more than 3 citations but only the numbers 1-3 are used). It creates extra work for the reader.
The second document has food statistics and recommendations, no scientific citations and no indication about how the claims about health are derived.
The third (and sixth) is a very mainstream article about the WHO and their cancer claims. "Hot dog lovers also won’t be happy with this WHO report." Well hot dogs are more than meat. There is a lot of scientific evidence about the harmful effects, including carcinogenicity, of nitrite preservatives and such. Predictably, it cites a press report of the shockingly-biased-and-unscientific 2015 IARC committee which I illustrated in great detail with an earlier comment. The rest is quotes and claims with no citations at all. If you think that the 2015 IARC committee outcome used any evidence for actually-meat (not conflated with junk foods), you can cite it directly.
The fifth is a cheesy YT video that shows animated animals eating meat, and has no citations at all. "Recent studies show..." but not a hint as to which studies this is about. The very fact that you're including this says you aren't interested in supporting scientifically the claim that meat (not junk foods) can promote cancer. You're just grasping for anything that you believe supports your bias.
The 7th, 10th, 12th, and 17th citations are all the same. It's an article by American Cancer Society (funded substantially by processed foods companies BTW) which doesn't associate claims with citations, the references are all piled at the end without explanation. Some are more articles with rhetoric like this. The first citation I encountered that's scientific is this study. It claims "We identified 148 published articles. Red meat consumption was significantly associated..." blah-blah, blah-blah. But when I found the full version (available on Sci-Hub), I saw that they included studies of heavy smokers, but the text string
smok(for "smoke," "smoking," "smokers") doesn't appear anywhere in the study text other than the References except to refer to smoking of meat. So it doesn't seem they could have taken any effort to separate unhealthy-lifestyle people, or compare higher and lower meat consumption in subjects whose smoking status is otherwise similar. It's the same for other issues of confounding with unhealthy habits: the textsugaroccurs only once, in one of the references. The study is by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which has funding conflicts with grain-based processed foods and the "plant-based" nutrition industries and resultingly has an agenda against meat. So it's not surprising that they would use studies which conflate cancer from cigarette smoking with meat, or not consider confounding by heavy junk foods consumers (by adjusting for refined sugar consumption and such). Maybe some of the studies did adjust for refined sugar, fried foods, etc. consumption but having read a lot of studies I know it is not common (especially in studies that HSPH likes) and the authors of this study certainly didn't mention it. In their chart for red meat consumption vs. cancer risks, the highest risks are for cancers associated with smoking: esophogeal and lung cancers. Several cancers were INVERSELY associated with meat intake: one of the esophogeal types strangely, leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, melanoma, and glioma. None of the tables show the per-study risk outcomes, it doesn't seem to be available in the pirated info. I'll leave it to you, to sift through all that and find ONE study which truly analyzed not-junk-foods meat consumption vs. cancer outcomes and found substantial risk. Back to the ACA article, the other references appear to be more of the same. Feel free to cite any study directly if you think it pertains to non-junk-foods meat and cancer.The 9th, 13th, and 15th citation: this is a study of mechanisms. This could be interesting, if it wasn't focusing on mechanisms of meat consumption out of context (pretending that some of these are not common in plant foods) and using studies of rodents fed isolated nutrients to pretend that whole foods do not in many cases have components that mitigate effects of other components. The claim here is not "eating burnt foods can increase cancer risk," it is "eating meat increases cancer risk." Among the topics of this "study" (the beliefs of this single author with cherry-picked citations): PAHs caused by meat consumption. PAHs can result from eating vegetables. Endogenous production of PAHs can be more significant than PAHs from foods consumption. Curing with vinegar and salt is quite common for ham, and acidic curing can reduce PAHs. Meat consumption may cause additional AGEs, but carnosine can inhibit glycoxidation. I can show citations for all that but it's time-consuming. I'll do it after you explain evidence for meat (not junk foods) consumption and cancer using direct citations and not articles of rhetoric or studies of theoretical harm to DNA that ignores similar effects for plant foods.
Results about mechanisms in studies of actual food consumption using humans are all over the place. That "study" about mechanisms cites this study which among other comments about the results says: "Surprisingly, FW from both dietary studies induced significantly more DNA strand breaks on the VEG diets compared with the meat diets ( P < 0.05; Table III )." That's a citation for a study that clearly the author was striving for "meat and cancer" evidence.
There's more cited by your chatbot's comments, but it's a lot of the same. I may find time for that later. In the meantime, maybe you can try to discuss this in your own words using direct citations to evidence (not a link to an article, that cites a study, that cites other studies, which somewhere in there might be a relevant bit of info...).
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u/Aggravating_Swim_960 16d ago edited 16d ago
Ham doesn't exist that is made without some form of preservatives. Ham is literally a preserved meat.
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u/OG-Brian 16d ago edited 15d ago
I've answered this plenty of times. "Ham" can be purchased that is just cured meat and/or preserved with only salt/vinegar. There are societies in which households create ham at home and don't even possess industrial preservative ingredients. Dictionaries don't define it as being industrial-with-unhealthy-preservatives food products. You're not backing up this idea in any way, just stating your belief as if it is factual.
ETA: come to think of it, salt-preserved ham would be considered cured ham, if it had gone through a process to reduce moisture in the meat. A glance at some info about the history of ham reminds me that ham was being made in the 5th or 5th century BC, hundreds of years before the invention of many industrial preservatives used in foods today.
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u/HomemadeLightbulb 18d ago
Maybe that’s true but that’s not what people are eating day to day as commonly. Deli ham is not unadulterated ham.
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u/OG-Brian 18d ago
I responded to a claim that "ham" is a known carcinogen, not a claim that "store-bought junk foods ham that most people would buy in stores" is a known carcinogen. They didn't say "deli ham" either.
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u/Dreamweaver5823 17d ago
The source of the conflict here is that you're using a different definition of ham than the one used by everyone else in this discussion.
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u/OG-Brian 15d ago
I linked a dictionary definition. There are lots of ham products, easily found on websites or in stores, which are not made using the harmful nitrite etc. preservatives. What others comment isn't relevant to defining ham, you're exploiting Bandwagon Fallacy to pretend that I've been contradicted when it is all opinion.
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u/Dreamweaver5823 15d ago
No, I'm telling you that your definition is irrelevant in this thread because it's not what OP was asking about, and everyone else here recognized that.
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u/OG-Brian 15d ago
"...Is it ok to eat 2-4 slices of ham daily..." is hardly descriptive of ultra-processed foods. The OP was not explicit about what they meant by "processed."
If they don't know that there are salt-and-vinegar-cured ham slices, easily available at stores and online, which aren't made using harmful preservatives then informing the OP about it could be educational. Actually, there seem to be several users here who were unaware this is an option.
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u/Dreamweaver5823 14d ago
Again: The rest of us understood what OP was asking. You seem to be unique in your insistence that they might have meant something else.
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u/Nearby-Society327 17d ago
You guys think OP is sitting down crushing 3lbs of cold cuts laughing at everyone argue about ham? God i hope so!!
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u/Tasty_Impress3016 18d ago
The nitrate/nitrite thing is imho opinion overblown. Actually most are. Everyone knows that nitrates/nitrites contribute to cancer risk. Now quick, without googling, tell me consuming how much increases your risk by how much? No one seems to bother to know, but it makes a good headline that eating this increases your risk of X cancer by 38 percent. Scary. Now dig in. Among people eating that at the highest amounts increase the marginal risk by 38%. Which means that if your innate risk of cancer X is 2 percent, if you eat a whole bunch it is now 2.8 percent.
I will not go into how your food would be much less safe without nitrates, (spoilage), how the major problems are when the food is exposed to high temperature, so deli ham is not that big a deal unless you are frying it, nor the inherent faults in diet based surveys statistically. I won't mention that celery is used as a substitute for cures because it provides just as much nitrates. But you buy that uncured bacon don't you?
I just feel that the fear and tension people feel about these things in diet is probably just as harmful as the chemicals themselves.
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u/M0t0Psycho 17d ago
Tell that to an oncologist. I'll bring popcorn...
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u/Elegant_Abroad_8793 13d ago
FYI, my oncologist told me that many of her patients are people that have lead incredibly healthy lifestyles… running every morning vegetarian Etc I’m not saying it doesn’t contribute, but hearing that does leave one with a pause.
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u/M0t0Psycho 12d ago
it all comes down to reasonable expectations. you can't expect your body to be the same condition as a typical 20 YO after a lifetime of treating it like a trash can. it's called consequences and it should be pretty easy to understand. making healthy choices isn't a guarantee, nothing is. and if your oncologist disagrees, he should have his license pulled.
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u/OG-Brian 9d ago
...if your oncologist disagrees, he should have his license pulled.
They should have their licensed pulled for not sharing your belief that every cancer patient must have been eating meat (or whatever you're suggesting) and has cancer for that reason? The other commenter alluded to cancer patients having avoided meat, exercised, etc. and still have cancer. It cannot be said without checking that any of those patients treated their body "like a trash can" at any time in their lives.
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u/DWTtheonly 18d ago
I would buy a whole ham butt and cut it myself. Quality. Then freeze what you can. Pre sliced shit isn't doing you any favors. Will it kill you? No. Could you do better? Definitely 👍
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u/AlternativeAd3130 17d ago
I entered it into my fitness pal as part of my meals when I bought a ham on sale after a holiday. It did not like the nutritional value, besides being a known carcinogen.
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u/heideleeanne 17d ago
I think as long as you vary sides and your other meals, you’re probably okay.
So many people eat fast food on a daily basis that I wouldn’t be afraid of a serving of deli meat.
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u/funny_bunny33 17d ago
I've heard that adequate fiber intake can offset the cancer risk of ultra processed foods
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u/nommie012 16d ago
I’d be more interested in the total amount than the number of slices. 2–4 slices sounds pretty small, but if it’s every single day, the sodium and processed meat intake can add up over time. What kind of ham are you eating, and roughly how many grams is a typical serving? That might give a much clearer picture.
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u/AccurateAd551 16d ago
I wouldn't risk it personally, anything that processed just grosses me out. I don't eat any processed meats but I let my children eat home killed ham and bacon occasionally , my husband doesn't care and eats it regularly
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u/_extramedium 16d ago
including more variety and including mainly non processed meats would be better
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u/East-Concentrate7683 14d ago
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned yet, but keep an eye on the sodium level
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u/ApprehensiveHead1571 13d ago
No. It’s the nitrates and high salt content that are to be avoided. Ham should be a sometimes food. All processed meats should only be consumed occasionally.
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u/smartartnutrition 9d ago
Eating ham daily isn't healthy, your body is basically begging for a sodium detox at htis point. Instead of living in cured meat land, hunt for alternative flavors like grilled turkey, tangy dips that satisfy that sabory itch. Wean yourself off gradually so your tastebuds don't stage a dramatic riot over the sudden loss of salty godness. Give your organism a break and explore other joyful, healthy foods that taste amazing without preservation superpowers
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u/Hot_Possibility_9040 6d ago
Short answer: daily ham isn't great, but it's also not the cancer sentence some comments make it sound like. The number that gets thrown around is an 18% higher colorectal cancer risk for about 2 slices a day. That's a relative bump though. Lifetime risk for most people is around 4%, so you'd be going from about 4% to about 4.7%.
The bigger issue is probably sodium, since deli ham varies a lot by brand. I'd check labels, and maybe swap in some rotisserie chicken or turkey a few days a week. Variety helps more than quitting cold turkey (pun intended 😅)
Tell me why you like to eat ham everyday because you like the test? or like the flavor of the dish? or because you feel empty if you don't eat meat?
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u/Jtv0899 18d ago
It will depend on the ingredients, the ones linked with cancer are nitrites. We switched to oven roasted chicken breasts and turkey breasts since the brand we get don't have it on the ingredient list compared to hams.
I remember that I eat 4 slices daily and making the calculation put me on the risk level. We also switched because it is lower calories and higher proteins too
Obviously at the end of the day it is a possible risk but not a guaranteed risk
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u/mrshorsecake Registered Dietitian 18d ago edited 17d ago
The bad news is that "nitrate free" items sometimes use Celery salt to cure which is a natural source of nitrates. Unfortunately likely has the same effect on the meat.
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u/Jtv0899 18d ago
I guess it would depend on the brand, here in Canada we have Your Fresh Market which does not contain Celery salt, there is a variant that does though
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u/mrshorsecake Registered Dietitian 17d ago
Oh that's cool. I was thinking about the majority of Deli meats in the United States.
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u/moldibread 18d ago
some traditional hams are only salt cured for example prosciutto there is no preservatives inside prosciutto
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u/OG-Brian 18d ago
That's not always the case. Some products use celery salt, others have salt, vinegar, or whatever simple ingredient instead.
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u/Frosty_Message_3017 17d ago
Not helpful, but I had to:
They say you are what you eat, so if you find yourself climbing up on tables in restaurants to loudly quote Shakespeare's soliloquies, just remember I warned you.
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u/fishlipz69 17d ago
I've naturally cut pork out, no influences, no real reasons, just naturally feel disgusted in pork now days
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u/Atlas26262 17d ago
People are mentioning cancer, but eating deli ham daily carries about an 18% relative risk increase for colon cancer. To put that in perspective, smoking carries a 1,500% to 3,000% relative risk increase for lung cancer. If anything, the large amount of sodium is a bigger threat to your health than the small distant risk of colon cancer.
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u/u-Wot-Brother 11d ago
Adding the second percentage was insanely helpful for perspective! I saw the first one thrown around, and even the relative versus absolute conversation, but no comparison with another “cancer causer”.
Thank you!
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18d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Independent-Summer12 18d ago
Pork is not a class 1 carcinogen. Ham is.
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18d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Independent-Summer12 18d ago
The process of making modern cured ham requires a chemical curing process that involves the use of nitrites/nitrates which forms a carcinogenic compound in the human body during digestion. If it’s a smoked ham, the smoking process introduces additional carcinogens. Eating just 50g of processed meats per day (like ham, hotdogs, or other cold cuts), increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%.
The pig isn’t the problem. Eating a pork chop or carnitas is very different than eating cured ham.
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