Nitrates in cheese

Doug Freyburger wrote:


The most obvious traditional meat diets are also ones that do not
use nitrates to preserve their meats. Sun drying, salting,
fermenting,
the array of preserving used is bewildering. But use of nitrates is
only a few centuries old.

Because of this I hesitate to blame nitrates. Those high meat diets
that are high risk appear to be "red and potatoes" folks. Blaming
the combination of high fat and high carb seems the way to go.

OK. This may well be true. I am still wary about high levels of
nitrates in meat. Didn't you warn me from nitrates in cheese? Those
levels are decidedly lower.



Having everyone avoid nitrates because some have problems with
nitrates is a paleolithic approach. It's conservative and effective,
but
it is unnecessarily restrictive in some cases. Will some benefit
by avoidance? Yes. Will all benefit from avoidance? I do not think
so. How to tell if you'll benefit by avoidance? By dropping from
your
diet for at least a week then reintroducing, standard issue eliminate
and challenge from Atkins and several other plans. If you feel better
by the end of the elimination period and/or feel worse when you
reintroduce (it's easier to tell getting worse than to tell getting
better)
then you know you'll benefit from avoidance.

This kind of testing is not really applicable to the threat caused by
preservatives. They are liable to cause cancer, so it is not like you
will notice it coming until it is too late. How would you feel that a
cancer is developing?

I don't think there's a big downside to avoiding nitrates. They
weren't
used until recent history (recent in terms of thousands of years,
not briefer centuries like refined flour and not longer tens of
millenia
like the introduction of grain agriculture).

It is still short as compared to the evolution of the human body. If
you tend to think as I and argued in the Atkins books that there was not
enough time for us to adapt to grain agriculture, then nitrates should
be a problem as well. A low carb diet high in nitrates might be a high
cancer risk. Taking the approach that "it won't happen to me" might not
be very good idea. I would at least try to stay away from smoked foods.



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Hakan Lane wrote:

*Didn't you warn me from nitrates in cheese?

No. I pointed out you have plenty of other cheese types to
choose from so avoiding cheese with nitrates is not a large
loss. If you chose to be conservative on the topic you are
not greatly restricting yourself.

On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 21:42:09 +0100, Hakan Lane wrote:


Doug Freyburger wrote:

Having everyone avoid nitrates because some have problems with
nitrates is a paleolithic approach. It's conservative and effective,
but
it is unnecessarily restrictive in some cases. Will some benefit
by avoidance? Yes. Will all benefit from avoidance? I do not think
so. How to tell if you'll benefit by avoidance? By dropping from
your
diet for at least a week then reintroducing, standard issue eliminate
and challenge from Atkins and several other plans. If you feel better
by the end of the elimination period and/or feel worse when you
reintroduce (it's easier to tell getting worse than to tell getting
better)
then you know you'll benefit from avoidance.

This kind of testing is not really applicable to the threat caused by
preservatives. They are liable to cause cancer, so it is not like you
will notice it coming until it is too late. How would you feel that a
cancer is developing?

This is pure fiction. Name one person who as died from cancer caused
by nitrates in their diet. Or even cite statistics from a study that
shows nitrate fatalities. I can do this with tobacco, but you can't
do it with nitrates .. because there has never been a human cancer
death caused by eating nitrates/nitrites in their meat.

This is merely hysteria perpetuating hysteria. Just like the
saccharine hysteria in the 1970's when it was banned because of the
same type scaremongers. Then after testing it on thousands and
thousands of people, they found no harmful effects whatsoever in
humans ingesting normal food levels of saccharine daily and put it
back on the market. I've been using sweet n' low daily for 25 years
and eating bacon my whole life. Nope, no cancer yet.
---
Peter
270/227/180

On Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:54:45 -0500, Marengo wrote:

On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 21:42:09 +0100, Hakan Lane wrote:


Doug Freyburger wrote:

Having everyone avoid nitrates because some have problems with
nitrates is a paleolithic approach. It's conservative and effective,
but
it is unnecessarily restrictive in some cases. Will some benefit
by avoidance? Yes. Will all benefit from avoidance? I do not think
so. How to tell if you'll benefit by avoidance? By dropping from
your
diet for at least a week then reintroducing, standard issue eliminate
and challenge from Atkins and several other plans. If you feel better
by the end of the elimination period and/or feel worse when you
reintroduce (it's easier to tell getting worse than to tell getting
better)
then you know you'll benefit from avoidance.

This kind of testing is not really applicable to the threat caused by
preservatives. They are liable to cause cancer, so it is not like you
will notice it coming until it is too late. How would you feel that a
cancer is developing?

This is pure fiction. Name one person who as died from cancer caused
by nitrates in their diet. Or even cite statistics from a study that
shows nitrate fatalities. I can do this with tobacco, but you can't
do it with nitrates .. because there has never been a human cancer
death caused by eating nitrates/nitrites in their meat.

You also can't proves deaths weren't caused by nitrates in meat.

This is merely hysteria perpetuating hysteria. Just like the
saccharine hysteria in the 1970's when it was banned because of the
same type scaremongers. Then after testing it on thousands and
thousands of people, they found no harmful effects whatsoever in
humans ingesting normal food levels of saccharine daily and put it
back on the market. I've been using sweet n' low daily for 25 years
and eating bacon my whole life. Nope, no cancer yet.
---
Peter
270/227/180

Most of the studies involving nitrates are epidemiological studies looking
for correlations between nitrates and cancer. Even if these studies
aren't crap, which the vast majority are, and even if the statistical
significance is high (most are abysmally low, low enough to be caused by
chance), these types of studies do not prove causation. In other words,
even if 100% of the people who eat nitrates die from cancer, it's not
necessarily true that nitrates cause cancer. (And in terms of
percentages, the actual percentages for these studies are shockingly low,
and the only reason they even appear large is because the studies authors
inflate the statistics by using relative risks.)

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This is pure fiction. Name one person who as died from cancer caused
by nitrates in their diet. Or even cite statistics from a study that
shows nitrate fatalities. I can do this with tobacco, but you can't
do it with nitrates .. because there has never been a human cancer
death caused by eating nitrates/nitrites in their meat.

This is merely hysteria perpetuating hysteria. Just like the
saccharine hysteria in the 1970's when it was banned because of the
same type scaremongers. Then after testing it on thousands and
thousands of people, they found no harmful effects whatsoever in
humans ingesting normal food levels of saccharine daily and put it
back on the market. I've been using sweet n' low daily for 25 years
and eating bacon my whole life. Nope, no cancer yet.
---
Peter
270/227/180


I believe that there are studies enough. I quote two web links and a
full story from USA Today below. The higher risk does not mean that
everyone gets it, so perhaps you are luckily immune. The link is still
established. Beyond these kind of studies, there is a known mechanism
for it as the nitrates convert to nitrosamines in the stomach. Knowing
what kind of terrible effects a cancer might have, I don't think that it
is being overly conservative to avoid the high level of these substances
found in foods like smoked fish and bacon. I feel quite safe with the
very low levels in cheese.


http://www.waternet.com/newsprint.as...e=4&N_ID=21690
http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/.../full/55/3/143

The following is a quotation from USA Today.

06/22/2001 - Updated 05:18 PM ET

LYON, France (June 23) - Eating lots of preserved meats such as
salami, bacon, cured ham and hot dogs could increase the risk of bowel
cancer by 50 percent, early results of a major new study have
suggested.

However, when it came to fresh red meat - beef, lamb, pork and veal
- there seemed to be no link.

Previous studies have linked high meat intake to colorectal cancer,
but almost all the studies grouped fresh and processed meats together.

The latest findings come from an ongoing study experts say is the
most reliable research into the influence of diet on cancer to date - an
investigation involving almost half a million people, from southern
Greece to northern Norway. However, that does not mean red meat has
been cleared of suspicion, said Dr. Arthur Schatzkin, chief of
nutritional epidemiology at the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

``These results are very preliminary,'' said Schatzkin, who was not
involved in the study. ``There's more narrowing down that has to be done
before we can draw any conclusions.''

The study, presented Friday in Lyon at the European Conference on
Nutrition and Cancer, is being coordinated by the World Health
Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Experts say the findings show the issue is more complex than
previously thought, and that it's not as simple as meat being either
cancer-promoting or not. Scientists are learning that factors such as
cooking methods and duration, and cuts of meat must also be
considered.

Some research has suggested that frying or barbecuing may add
cancer-promoting chemicals to meat and that a crispy lamb chop or a
well-done steak may contain undesirable compounds.

``This points us in the direction we need to go. The only firm
conclusion is that lumping fresh and processed meat together is
inappropriate,'' said Martin Wiseman, a professor at the Institute of
Human
Nutrition in Southampton, England, who was not involved with the
research.

``But now, what about hamburgers? Are they processed or fresh meat?
And meatballs? Where do they fit in? We are just starting to disentangle
all this,'' Wiseman said.

The study's coordinator, Dr. Elio Riboli, chief of the nutrition
division at the International Agency for Research on Cancer, told
scientists no link was seen when all red meat was examined as one group.

But when the processed meat, which is usually red meat, was
investigated alone, those who ate an average of 2 ounces per day - the
equivalent of a thick slice or two of smoked ham, four slivers of
Parma ham or one giant hot dog - had a 50 percent greater chance of
developing cancer of the colon or rectum than those who ate no preserved
meat.

``However, we could not, so far, take into account cooking methods
in our analysis,'' Riboli said. ``So we could not, for the time being,
separate red meat consumption depending on whether it was
consumed well done or rare. Therefore, these are just intermediate
results.''




(USA Today 22/6-2001)

On Feb 24, 8:13 am, Bob wrote:
You also can't proves deaths weren't caused by nitrates in meat.
You (and everyone else) cannot prove that deaths weren't cause by
air breathing, water drinking. masturbating, lemon, or whatever.

Again, correlation != causation, and proving something isn't anything
is impossible.

"H.L" writes:

This is not really a response to a post in the "nitrates in cheese"
thread. Having followed up on my original query by checking the numbers,
it strikes me that I have read about the link between "red meat" and
cancer a few times. The abscence of cancer in several native groups with
very high consumption of meat made me curious about this connection. I
don't dispute the scientific findings, but is it because of the nitrates
from preservatives and processing techniques? Low carbers might do well
from those kind of products, including preserved meat, smoked fish and
bacon.

Another thing: "native" peoples who eat a lot of meat generally are not
stuffing those animals with grain, which drives down the omega-3 fats in
the meat. They eat animals that graze local plants, wild fish, and the
like. Very different from what the average consumer calls "red meat."

Before factory farming, farmers used to keep cattle on pasture most of
their lives, then a few weeks before slaughter, they'd feed them a lot
of grain. That quickly added fat to the animal, raising the price it
would bring at market, or making it more marbled if they were using it
for themselves. That's how "corn-fed" beef became popular.

As corn got cheaper and factory farms got larger, it became cheaper to
simply keep the cattle in a pen and feed them corn their whole lives.
Cross-breeding with naturally leaner breeds balanced the increased fat
caused by this diet, but the composition of the fat is very different
than that of the animal raised completely or mostly on pasture.



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