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How to grill up less cancer [slideshow]
3. Avoid processed meats
Processed meats like hot dogs and bratwurst are the worst offenders.
Just eating 50 grams of processed meat daily increases your risk of colon cancer by a whopping 18 percent. If you’re eating a hot dog or BLT (with four strips of bacon) every day, this statistic applies to you. And in other studies, processed meat has been linked to an increased risk of an early death from all causes.
So, what is it exactly that makes processed meat so bad for you?
The answer is nitrates. Now, many foods contain natural nitrates, like spinach, beets, celery, parsley, green beans and carrots. These nitrates can be beneficial to your health. They can even improve your muscle strength and stamina.
But processed meat contains an added chemical nitrate called sodium nitrite. Once you put this chemical nitrate in your body, it turns into N-nitroso compounds, which have been linked to cancer. Cooking processed meat at high temperatures — especially when you’re barbecuing or grilling — can also increase the levels of these cancer-causing N-nitroso compounds in your meat.
What meat should you throw on your grill? Clearly processed meats are bad news (like all processed food is) so steer clear of those. But there are a few other tricks to healthy red meat consumption…
