LogFAQs > #956319071

He's not wrong.

As of 2015, the WHO lists red meat as a group 2A carcinogen, while processed meats, including fish and poultry, are a group 1 carcinogen on the same level of cancer causing effect as asbestos, tobacco and plutonium.

When speaking about heart disease in particular, saturated fat and cholesterol are the two most notable culprits, and the foods that are high in those and consumed the most are red meat, dairy, eggs, poultry, fish, shellfish, fried foods and refined sweets like cake and donuts.

Inaccurate. The WHO has said processed meat is proven to cause cancer, just as cigarettes are. But the cancer risk attached to eating processed meat is far smaller than smoking.

"In the normal run of things, around 6 in every 100 people would be expected to get bowel cancer in their lifetime. If all these 100 people ate a three-rasher (around 50g) bacon sandwich every single day of their lives, then according to this report we would expect that 18% more would get bowel cancer which is a rise from 6 cases to 7 cases. So that's one extra case of bowel cancer in all those 100 lifetime bacon-eaters."

In contrast, the chance of getting lung cancer in the UK increases from around one in 100 if you don't smoke throughout your lifetime to more than 20 in 100 if you smoke a pack of cigarettes every day. That's according to Professor Kevin McConway at The Open University. And lung cancer isn't the only type of cancer caused by smoking.