Seeing those obese cats at the end, I found myself wondering...
Would it be too controversial to combine two things so insanely popular on the internet as cats and bacon?
What does cat-bacon taste like?

That may be the widest possible gap between the cuteness of an animal's look versus its sound.

A blind hunter's mouth might start watering expecting to dine on bacon.

I'll address your linked report first because I have a problem with the statistics on there. It's a little misleading because the bit you mentioned only considers cancer deaths attributable with processed meats.

But then goes to includes all diseases attributable with smoking, not just cancer.
So it's not comparing cancer to cancer rates. The report is comparing processed meat cancer with ALL smoking diseases.

And this makes smoking look a lot worse. For a fair comparison we'd need to compare only smoking caused cancers to processed meat cancers.
Or we'd need to compare diseases from processed meat, to all diseases from smoking.

Further the report, states that it's an 18% risk for only 50g of processed meat.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I ate the stuff, it wasn't just 50g. That's like 3 chicken nuggets. I'd eat 9 at least in one sitting for lunch(150g). Maybe I had 2 rashers of bacon for breakfast, another 50g, and then I might have a few slices of salami for dinner, another 50g.

So in a day I might have eaten 250g of processed meat. So it might only be 18% chance to get cancer, but that's 5 times I've rolled the dice(250 divded by 50g = 5). So even low odds get pretty dangerous if you roll the dice often enough.


Right after that paragraph, it goes on to say that the total number of attributable deaths to processed meat is 644,000.

So now we're finally comparing apples with apples. 644,000 processed meat deaths vs. 1 million tobacco deaths.

Still smoking is the clear winner here, but it's 2/3 the way there. So to me Dr. Greger's statement is starting to ring true.

Of course Dr. Greger isn't only talking about processed meat, he's talking about all meat, including poultry and fish too. Because just like processed meat, they have cholesterol and saturated fat which causes heart disease and diabetes without a doubt.
The heart disease statistics are (google says:) "An estimated 17.5 million people died from CVDs in 2012, representing 31% of all global deaths"
Now granted not all of these cardiovascular diseases will be diet related. But we only need to another 366,000 out of that 17.5 million to be caused by diet, and now we're comparing 1 million meat related deaths to 1 million tobacco related deaths.

So it's totally comparable in my eyes. And in the end, regardless of which has higher chances of cancer. The death rates are easily matched.

(not to mention colorectal cancer is kills more people, even though more people get lung cancer. Because lung cancer is more survivable).

A report that places chicken nuggets, turkey slices and bacon in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos is NOT equivalent to saying that quitting meat is the disease and mortality equivalent of quitting smoking.

That is patently absurd, and demonstrates what happens when someone tries to apply the scientific conclusion of a study to ...everything else. Scientific studies have a particular scope. They should state clearly within the study the limits of what the information can tell us.

1. How much of those meat products must you eat vs. how many cigarettes do you have to smoke? If i quit having one slice of bacon a week, I will not be healthier than if i quit smoking 10 a day.
2. The meat products you refer to make up only a small fraction of the meat based produce that is available. You might as well say "krokodil is bad for you, so stop taking your insulin."

I expect you to admit that the bit from the comment quote (put in bold) is wrong.

OK, so cured meats cured with nitrates are now classified carcinogenic, but non cured meats, and meats cured without nitrates, salt, or smoke only "may" be slightly carcinogenic...or may not. So still, not all deli turkey, not all chicken nuggets (I make them at home from whole chicken with no preservatives) or bacon (I had some uncured bacon a few years back...it sucked, but it does exist)....so not ALL processed meats are in that category, and certainly not all nuggets, sliced turkey, or bacon...so exaggeration, even if you wish to say it's only exaggeration by omission of detail.

Because he strongly implies it's because they are meats, says "The World Health Organization recently published a report that puts chicken nuggets, deli turkey slices, bacon and other processed meats in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos: known carcinogens" without explanation, and extrapolates to imply that all meats are as carcinogenic as habitually smoking processed tobacco cigarettes.

In terms of disease, overall danger to a person's health, and morality, it's completely inaccurate, and grossly misleading. A processed plant diet (the norm) can be FAR worse for you and the environment than a sustainably raised, non processed meat based diet (which is not the norm). It's not cut and dry, details matter.
"The International Agency for Cancer Research (IARC) used clearly defined guidelines to identify hazards (qualitative evaluation), i.e. whether an agent can cause cancer, but IARC does not assess level or the magnitude of risk.
Even though smoking is in the same category as processed meat (Group 1 carcinogen), the magnitude or level of risk associated with smoking is considerably higher (e.g., for lung cancer about 20 fold or 2000% increased risk) from those associated with processed meat – an analysis of data from 10 studies, cited in the IARC report showed an 18 percent increased risk in colorectal cancer per 50g processed meat increase per day. To put this in perspective, according to the Global Disease Burden Project 2012, over 34,000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are attributable to high processed meat intake vs. 1 million deaths per year attributable to tobacco smoke."
source- https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/11/03/report-says-eating-processed-meat-is-carcinogenic-understanding-the-findings/
So, smoking =2000% greater risk, eating meat daily-18% greater risk....so not honestly equivalent by any stretch.

I would agree that switching from a processed meat based diet to a non processed plant based (not even necessarily pure vegetarian) diet, in general, might be equivalent to quitting smoking (but smoking how much, and smoking what, depends on MANY variable factors, and it appears it's generally equivalent to smoking <2 cigarettes per week, while breathing air in most cities is equivalent to smoking a pack a day).

But the WHO report does in fact put chicken nuggets, turkey slices, and bacon into the same category(Group 1 carcinogens) as cigarettes and asbestos, because they are processed meats.

He's just saying what the report says, so I don't understand how that can be exaggeration.


"plant based diets (quitting meat) is the equivalent of quitting smoking".
In terms of disease and mortality that is completely accurate.

Duh. Soylent green is made from elderly people, not teenagers, and as such it's made from pretty tainted meat. I'll take some Soylent pink, made from pure milk fed baby.

Not murder if they're terminally ill and ask you to do it, in many states.

Far more ethical to work for proper animal treatment than to insist on something that will never happen in a way that makes those you wish to convince your adversaries. He'll get WAY farther towards ending some animal suffering that your methods ever will. Your methods have had many people reply to you that they will eat MORE meat just to spite you, or so you've said in the past....so your methods are obviously failing badly, so are unethical as they cause MORE animal suffering.

Most available vegan food is processed today, so is in the same category you put bacon and deli turkey. Unprocessed meats are also far healthier than processed meats, and are more nutrient dense than plants.

Depending on the curing process, it can be bad or good (and again, not PROVEN to cause cancer...you just backed off that claim on the other thread...so why make it again?)

He wants less harm done to animals....so he's winning. he wants people to eat MORE healthily, he's winning. He wants to move away from a zealous, all or nothing movement that's failing in it's goals and making enemies in the effort, he's winning.

There isn't enough available land to switch to purely vegetarianism either, you're point is ridiculous, no one is advocating feeding all people on pure meat....he's not even advocating for vegetarians to eat meat, and said so clearly. If you had a point to make, then you've failed.

You say that like vegans aren't mostly pasty sickly looking people that look about 2 years late for death by wasting syndrome.

"plant based diets (quitting meat) is the equivalent of quitting smoking".....Pretty clear to me....so does this article he produced..."The World Health Organization recently published a report that puts chicken nuggets, deli turkey slices, bacon and other processed meats in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos: known carcinogens"
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-much-cancer-does-lunch-meat-cause/

Except the report really only said that PROCESSED meats/poultry MAY be dangerous carcinogens (edit: and that may be 100% due to the processing they receive, not the meat)...so sorry, no exaggeration on my part, it's on his part.

I think your overestimating how much money is in charity appearances for an vegan audience(which is something like 1% of the population). Wouldn't be easier to make money from a product that targets the other 99% of the population?

If he wanted to make money, he can make a lot more by simply being a doctor. And a helluva lot more by prescribing statins and all of the other drugs used to counteract the side-effects of statins.

Or if he wanted the blogs and lifestyle thing, he could sell Paleo/Ketosis diets because it's a lot easier to sell books that tell people to eat bacon instead of vegetables.

You'll notice that his blog doesn't make money like other blogs do, as there are no ads, and he's got no industry sponsorship's.

If he's trying to make money, then he's doing a poor job.





As for cherry picking data, yes his opinions are formed by the studies that aren't clearly B.S. industry funded designer studies - The studies that are repeated over and over with small adjustments to make the outcome positive. But I know he reads even the industry funded studies, because he often points out why they are poorly constructed studies, designed purposely to show a specific outcome.


He makes a new video nearly every day, and has been doing so for nearly 10 years. That's some 3000+ videos. He's allowed one mistake.
But it's not even a mistake. This blogger is trying to discredit all of this work because of semantics about a W.H.O. report. (She didn't read the W.H.O report correctly, because it does actually say that poultry *may* be carcinogenic too).

its really not that simple.

Can roundup cause cancer? Well, I wouldn't recommend drinking it.

WILL it cause cancer? Eh, not really.

His lady needs to understand the difference between "hazard" and "risk".
http://www.wired.com/2016/05/monsantos-roundup-herbicide-cause-cancer-not-controversy-explained/

And bacon doesn't cause cancer either.

I had bacon wrapped enoki whilst in Thailand, it was lovely. Not normally a fan, and putting it on pizza should be a crime.

The truth is one of the reasons I'm vegan is because I'm very worried about our own species. We only have one planet to live on, and and worrying about what we eat, and the methods to produce it have far reaching consequences, one of which is the death of a large amount of humans via global warming and the various environmental issues it sets off.

On a more personal scale I'm worried about peoples health. It's no secret that meat causes and encourages cancer, and all animal products cause a range of health issues which lead to death. There are around a million completely preventable deaths each year in the US alone. Not to mention quality of life issues. All of which could have been prevented, treated and even reversed on a proper plant based diet.

That's the beautiful thing that I have found with veganism, is that everybody wins. The people are thinner and healthier, the environment thrives, and no animals are harmed unnecessarily.

Here is a question for you. How will you explain to your son's children that there are no more fish in the ocean, why we have no jungles left? Because "you really like bacon" doesn't seem like a good answer all of a sudden

When you see what horrible things people did in the past, such as whaling, or seal beating, don't you think to yourself, why were they so blind, so greedy and selfish? They could have done things a lot differently. Perhaps they didn't know better, but we don't have that excuse anymore, because we are aware of what impact our choices have for everyone and everything on this planet.