An outbreak of listeria has U.S. health officials advising people who are pregnant, elderly or have compromised immune systems to avoid eating sliced deli meat.
I'm a PB & J fan myself, but even if you're going to have meat in your sandwich, maybe boil some chicken or something. Deli meats are about as unhealthy as you can get. Filled with salt and preservatives.
You can get lunch meat that doesn't have cultured celery extract or sodium nitrate. It's usually only chicken or turkey, ham pretty much always has it in my experience.
I've also been meaning to make my own using a ham press.You have to grind the meat, fill the tube and boil it. Then you can cut into slices and it's almost the same as what you get in store.
There's probably worse meat-related stuff you could put in your body. I was a big fan of ordering corned beef hash back when ate meat and went out for breakfast. That stuff comes out of a can. I don't even want to know what's in it.
Processed meats — like lunch meat, hot dogs and sausage — are generally considered unhealthy. They’re high in calories, low in protein and — in the case of mechanically separated meats — use undesirable parts of the animal as filler. Canned and packaged meats often contain nitrates or nitrites, which studies link to several cancers. Even minimally processed cold cuts include preservatives to prevent spoilage after being sliced.
“Fatty, processed luncheon meats like bologna, salami and pepperoni have large amounts of saturated fat and sodium, both of which have been linked to cancer, obesity and heart disease,” Zumpano shares. In fact, processed meats are actually considered carcinogenic.
And salt is tied to high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases. It's still the longest known preservative in human history. And undesirable parts of the animals? We used to use everything.
As an aside, anyone who sees boiled and baked meat as the same is like someone seeing Elvis and black Sabbath as the same. Like sure - they both have roots in the same place, but they are wildly different if you put any effort in.
There's a point where everything will negatively affect a person. First, I was curious why salt was kept apart from other preservatives, second, I wanted to know why both of them were demonized. Most of the things you call against salt are the same concerns as the rest, and from your article, if you follow that cancer link, it just talks about neat consumption and cancer, not deli meat specifically
If you'd like me to make the argument though, ground meal of some sort is usually healthier than a blighted potato. So processed can be better than natural. Pasteurized milk is often healthier than non.
Why are you talking about things that aren't meat and aren't processed in the way we're talking about meat being processed? We are specifically discussing meat. Not meal, potatoes or milk.
Nothing, in and of themselves. Too much of anything is bad for you. Just moderate your intake of each thing dependent on how bad it is for you and your own personal health, and you'll be fine.