If beloved bacon doesn’t kill you, it might just make you immortal

“Find what you love and let it kill you” is a quote attributed to Charles Bukowski (though no one knows whether he actually said it) and a mantra recited by starving artists who pursue their passion in the face of poverty. This week though, it could be the mantra of bacon lovers.

Bacon is one of the most adored foods on the planet, but its gradual effects, according to new findings by the World Health Organization, are potentially cancer-inducing.

According to WHO, which analyzed evidence linking the consumption of processed meats like bacon, hotdogs and sausages to cancer, “each 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 per cent.”

You might think, well big deal, bacon never had a great reputation to begin with (its image is synonymous with obesity, heart attack, and Homer Simpson) but consider this: 50 grams of processed meat isn’t even close to a Homer Simpsonsized portion.

In fact, 50 grams of bacon amounts to roughly only two slices — and who can honestly eat less than two slices of bacon? Nobody. This is why the WHO findings have gone astronomically viral, inspiring doom-laden headlines at an alarming rate, some of which include: “Bacon kills?” and “Put down the hotdogs and salami.” Coupled with this bacon scare is additional bad news for processed meat lovers: Clear Food, a U.S. lab that analyzes food “at a molecular level,” recently released a study indicating that 2 per cent of the hotdogs they tested contained human DNA. (Great news: your love of processed meat may not only kill you; it may also turn you into a cannibal.)

In other uplifting public health news this month, a meat sauce sold in Ontario and Quebec grocery stores was recalled because it may contain dangerous bacteria.

It seems every day the news cycle produces a study indicating that our life choices will result in illness or untimely death — followed directly by a contradictory report or article explaining why the original study is inaccurate, overblown, or misguided.

Take the recent influx of news stories about senior citizens who — contrary to the WHO finding — have lived long, happy lives chock full of bacon. According to USA Today, 116-year-old Susannah Mushatt Jones “keeps a steady diet of bacon, eggs and grits for breakfast,” and hangs a sign in her kitchen that reads “Bacon makes everything better.” Processed meat won’t give you cancer; it will make you immortal!

I don’t know about you, but I find this public health news cycle extremely confusing and exhausting. It’s a feeling I’ve dubbed “research fatigue,” and I’m probably not the only person suffering from it.

“They’ve actually done studies to show that people start to tune out when they hear these alarmist headlines about ‘everything causes cancer,’” says Tim Caulfield, University of Alberta professor and Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy.

“If the message is too confusing and too conflicting, people stop listening. These conflicting stories make it hard for people to hear the truth through the noise.”

So what is the truth? If you don’t eat bacon every day, you are probably OK. Caulfield says it’s important for people to understand the difference between “relative risk” and “absolute risk.”

If your absolute risk of being diagnosed with colon cancer is 4 or 5 per cent, says Caulfield, excessive bacon eating can increase your risk of cancer by “18 per cent out of 4-5 per cent.”

In those terms, he says, “the absolute increase in risk isn’t really that much.”

The sad thing is that even when people aren’t affected by research fatigue — i.e. when they do try to change their eating habits, they rarely succeed.

“There may be a momentary shift,” says Caulfield, in which people eat healthier, but “after a little bit of time they regress back to their old behaviour.”

For now, the bacon train seems to be chugging along just fine. Andrew Motta, owner of Toronto restaurant Bacon Nation, home of the “peanut butter bacon milkshake,” says he has received no complaints from customers worried about the WHO finding.

In his words: “You hear bacon is bad today and next week, it’s going to be ‘nine healthy reasons you should eat bacon.’ You’ve just gotta take it with a grain of salt.”

Or if you’re so inclined, a bucket load.