Now they want to condemm baconand sausage!

[lancashire lass]

Me too and I remember all the ho-ha about the eggs!! That blooming Eggwina Currie!!

sorry but I have to disagree and she should be patted on the back - Salmonella in the egg industry was rife in the 1980s and her comments brought a big change that was desperately needed. That and Listeria in raw milk products too. These were hygiene issues rather than food content and healthy eating advice.

Well I have to stand up for the researchers here. The way the press report it is not neccessarily what the research was saying.

I'm in agreement - the media seem to get their teeth into an article (and with all the horse meat scandal still headline news) and give a biased report without looking at the facts.

My mum will be 90 in May and her sister is 92 so a diet high in those kinds of foods hasn't done either of them any harm

Traditional methods of preservation have changed for quick turnover- some of the specialised sausages would be stored for a long time in certain conditions until mature but these days this is changed and:

preserved with nitrites.

which is very bad for health and a known carcinogen if eaten in quantity (hence, the advice to cut down on the bacon and preserved sausages) However, even traditional methods could be bad for health if the food was not carefully prepared and got contaminated with deadly pathogens. It would seem using nitrites is the lesser of 2 evils but in moderation.

Currently obesity is a big problem (excuse the pun) world wide and lots of foods high in saturated fats are targetted. Our parents/grandparents actually ate far more fats than what we do today, but then they didn't drive cars and have such a sedentary life style. Fat was considered calories that got burned in exercise from physical hard work (compare yesterday a shovel to today a petrol driven digger) and kept people warm during cold winter weather, whereas today most people live and work in central heated environments.

[Benny&Co]

Wooops, sorry LL. In fairness it was when I was younger so perhaps didn't read into it as much as you have.

[lancashire lass]

Wooops, sorry LL. In fairness it was when I was younger so perhaps didn't read into it as much as you have.

hey, no offence taken. When I was studying towards my degree, I specialised in microbiology when the egg problems were at their height. I think I was a bit like you and thought Edwina Currie was a bit of a pompous twerp but afterwards realised she was probably one of the better MPs at the time and I've got a lot of respect for her now.

[Mrs B]

I like Edwina she used to be great fun, she used to pop into my house for cuppa and a natter then I would watch her car while she was canvassing the area.

[Maggie1]

I like Edwina she used to be great fun, she used to pop into my house for cuppa and a natter then I would watch her car while she was canvassing the area.

Namedropper

[Freeranger]

The problem, therefore, is not the meat but the preservation method. And the preservation method is dictated by regulation, many of the traditional methods being specifically disallowed. There is nothing intrinsically unhealthy about recovered meat, and people have been eating everything but the squeak for as long as people have been rearing animals for food.

I agree that the reporting of science is very poor, with not enough distinction between cause and correlation, and sensationalism causing scare stories. But dieticians also play a part by assuming that people are so stupid that they simplify the message to such an extent that it becomes nonsense and doesn't stand the scrutiny of anyone who wants to understand it. And there's no distinction drawn between the hazardous and the dangerous, nor the sponsorship of the research, nor the sensible conclusion to be drawn from the results. How can you take seriously something that tells you a different course of action will cut deaths? No it won't - we're all going to die of something and the mortality rate will always be 100%. It is just a question of how we want to live while we're here, and how and when we want to go, as Mrs B says.

[lancashire lass]

we're all going to die of something and the mortality rate will always be 100%.

I like your logic

[Mrs B]

With life there are two things that are guaranteed to happen ... the first is that whatever government is in charge will try to tax the hide off you and the second is that you will die.