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Comment by damnesian | Hacker News Reader

Microplastics in every cell in our bodies, more and more food is made of lab chemical non-food substances. These are not controversial ideas. why is this baffling doctors again?

But let's talk about the things that are controversial, but really shouldn't be. Pesticides are carcinogenic. Landmark cases are making headlines but quickly sinking below the radar. Meat and diary consumption, despite the drum beat of evidence and recommendations, is accelerating at a rate that even experts find alarming. These foods are known carcinogens.

I went to a trendy bar recently and their bloody mary has skewers of smoked sausage and bacon. Sure, on one hand, yummm, bacon. On the other hand, there are whole continents of data proving without a doubt these foods cause cancer.

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It's kind of a stretch to conclude that meat & dairy consumption (foundations of human civilization along with grain, humans have been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years) are on par with novel non-food substances like microplastics and sucralose in their ability to cause cancer rates to increase in recent decades.

If meat and dairy were so carcinogenic, we'd see high cancer rates in e.g. Mongolians with traditional lifestyles and diets.

You won't like this news (https://english.news.cn/20230204/ee58b5835c9e49a7921d11ab481....)

"adding that liver, gastric, esophageal and cervical cancers accounted for the majority of all registered cases."

I wonder if people will ever stop rationalizing their red meat addiction, despite the decades of clear evidence of the impact it has on the GI tract in particular. Our ancestors didn't gulp down so much of it because they were so healthy, but because getting calories and dying of cancer after reproduction was a better deal than starving.

Interesting!

> getting calories

It's not the calories. It's the fats, trace nutrients, amino acids, cholesterol, etc. Otherwise we'd all have no trouble being vegetarian.

In any case, it's easy to agree that microplastics and pesticides are probably bad. Even if meat eating does cause cancer, it's harder to characterize it as an "addiction" and more as a biological tradeoff that our bodies made millennia ago.

The important factors with meat consumption are: 1) how they're prepared ('low and slow' is the best method of cooking, i.e., at a relatively low temperature and for a relatively long time in order to avoid creation of AGE's and trans-fats); and 2) how they're preserved, whether through salting, smoking, application of nitrites (different from nitrates!), &c.

> The important factors with meat consumption are: 1) how they're prepared ('low and slow' is the best method of cooking, i.e., at a relatively low temperature and for a relatively long time in order to avoid creation of AGE's and trans-fats)

I daily eat beef that has been cooked by sous-vide at 155F for 48 hours and then crisp up in an air fryer at 400F for 20 minutes. Is this over doing it with regards to carcinogen production?

I think the eating beef daily part is more concerning than how it's prepared and that seems to be overdoing it.

That doesn't sound like well balanced protein sources and it's certainly not what our ancestors would have had access to. i.e. some days there'd be little to no food available, some days might only be grains/fruit/legumes/veg and then the occasional feast of meat which might last days or weeks after a hunt.

I agree with that paleo approach to diet, and your conclusions. In my case my gastroparesis prevents me from eating any significant amount of fiber and diabetes II from eating many carbs. Meat is what's left. I tolerate beef best so eat it the most.

I think that the ease of digestion and my health improvements are evidence that this is an eating pattern that we're well adapted to.

I would say your cooking approach is A-OK for the most part. Frying meat in oil is probably the most egregious creator of AGE's and trans-fats.

You are pointing the finger at things you think are worrisome.

But for this particular issue, the problem is a recent significant change in cancer rates. That means that the cause is likely a recent significant change. The items you listed don't strike me as having changed significantly in decades.

Off hand, I can think of dozens of environmental factors that have changed: increase in acceptance of mental health leading to more Rx for same; vaping; marijuana use; a different mix of recreational drug use; less socializing leading to less physical activity; less air pollution; less physical activity as children due to attitude changes about their safety on their own in public; and a dozen more I didn't think of.

I wish good luck to the medical professionals who need to untangle this and find the source causes.

So, from the tone of your message I infer the following opinions of yours

- We shouldn't eat chemical non-food

(whatever that means)

- We shouldn't eat meat and diary

So then how do you get a balanced diet? "Chemical" non-food supplements? Expensive (both ecological, and for my personal wallet) vegan options such as nuts?

These sorts of submissions are sure to attract armchair nutritionists and epidemiologists. Judging by the comments so far, they've predictably come in droves.

What always bothers me is that HN immediately starts discussing these submission as if it were a personal responsibility issue rather than a public health issue. You're not even going to make a dent in these cancer numbers by appealing to people's personal responsibility to follow a healthier diet.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Rice, beans, potatoes, lentils, other cereal grains are cheap and have a low ecological footprint compared to other foods.

Other vegetables, fruits, nuts, eggs can round out a diet and provide nutrients, flavors, textures, etc.

Basically, eat like every human on earth throughout history other than Western-diet in the past 40 years.

A lot of those earlier humans had moderate meat consumption. Making bacon is an old school preservation method from before refrigeration.

Also, when I think of American diets 40 years ago I think of a lot of meat. I think that figure needs to go further back.

>vegan options such as nuts?

Yep! Trade them with uncontacted tribes in New Guinea!

Seriously though I think we can be upset about unhealthy food without need to offer up a solution to the problem of corporate accountability.

> Pesticides are carcinogenic.

Some pesticides are very likely carcinogenic.

For others, the mechanism of action is acetylcholine esterase inhibition, essentially insect-sized nerve gas dosing, metabolized by things bigger than insects, and then there are nicotine analogues for more neurotoxic action.

Isn't there whole continents of data proving that drinking ethanol causes cancer? Is a strip of bacon more cancer-causing than the bloody mary?

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