Research Paper Meats

All types of meats are a major part of a basic diet for any person of any region but here within the United States over 200 pounds of processed meat is consumed by each person every year. This is not only contributing to the obesity in America but it is also linked to many other fatal and long term illnesses such as lung disease, heart disease, cancers, and even triggers migraines(Roseboro 6). These processed meats like hotdogs, bacon, deli meats, and sausage are injected with sodium nitrates which are known to be linked to the cause of deadly diseases.

Sodium nitrates were made to be a benefit but this benefit is superbly outweighed by the bad effects. The sodium nitrates are injected into the meats to preserve the food so it stays in a well maintained condition while on the shelf and during the shipping process because nobody wants to eat smelly, old, and moldy food. This is a benefit of the selling of this product but it is probably the only benefit of these products according to Nottingham. He claims that "Even though sodium nitrates make the food more appetizing looking, the public's health is more important."

The overall health of processed meat consumers is more threatened now than it was back in the 1900's and 1800's, because there were never any sodium nitrates until the turn of the century. For numerous years meat had been preserved with salt. Salt prevented the main bacteria growth from occurring and produced the same flavor that is in our meats today. At the turn of the century though people were determined that sodium nitrate preserved the meat the best so sodium nitrate was taken up as the new improved food preservative (Nottingham 26).

These sodium nitrates are not just food preservatives they are "cancer-causing chemicals" (Roseboro 14). The sodium nitrates injected into these processed meats, when consumed, are broken down into nitrosamines which are cancer causing chemicals (Carcinogens) that damage the DNA in cell. Once the sodium nitrates break down into nitrosamines a chemical reaction happens causing the nitrosamines to react with the processed meats to make cancer an even more evident risk (14). These risk factors are the main reason sodium nitrates are so exponentially dangerous and a life threat to the people's health.

In this recent study by Swedish researchers they analyzed 11 clinical trials of people in which involved 6,643 individuals struck with pancreatic cancer. What they found was that eating processed meats such as bacon, sausage, salami, pepperoni and hotdogs increases your risk of developing pancreatic cancer by 19 percent for every 50g of processed meat consumed. What came out as startling to me is that 50g is all it takes to increase your risk which is about as much as one sausage link (Roseboro 23). This research shows how life threatening the sodium nitrates in the meat can really be each time you are consuming a processed meat.

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