Unhealthy Foods We Eat: Bacon (Processed Meats)

Hello friends, Uncle Marv here back with another episode of My Unhealthy Podcast. And if you're a regular listener, you might be saying, oh, wow, two shows in two days. What's up with that? Well, I'll tell you, as I was doing the previous show, you may have heard me stumbling, mumbling, and almost in a sense rambling because I felt like I was lost.

And I was, because I had an entire page of podcast notes that I was missing. And once I got into it, the choice was, well, do I stop the podcast and start over if I found the notes or do I keep going and live with what I did? And of course, many of you know, I don't edit. So I hit record and I go and I publish what I ended up with.

So that was yesterday's show. Now I am going to continue on with this show with that page that I found. And it was actually something that I was going to talk with some people over at Podfest, but I, of course, forgot that too.

And that was an article that I had read earlier in the week. And the article was entitled, 15 Unhealthy Foods We Eat Even Though We Know It's Bad For Us. So one of the things that I've been doing with the show, you know, of course, it's, you know, a show about health and wellness started out being about my journey, but we're basically going to be exploring personal health journeys with a lot of people and we're going to go beyond traditional diet and fitness.

And we're going to talk about various aspects of wellness, including self-love, relationships, mental health, and overcoming unhealthy lifestyles. So anything that has the word unhealthy in it is going to kind of catch my eye. And I'm not going to go through all 15 items that are listed on this list, but of course, 15 unhealthy foods, got to know what they are.

So I'm going to put the link in the show notes. And tonight I'm just going to talk about one of the items on the list, and it's just entitled Processed Meats. And what's funny is when you see the article, the very first picture is bacon.

And we know how many people love bacon. But bacon falls into the category of unprocessed meats. And the question is, what else falls into that category? So of course, bacon, ham, sausages, salami, hot dogs, deli meats, and canned meats all fall into that category.

And what is the definition of a processed meats? Well, what I found is that those are meats that have been modified to improve taste or extend shelf life through methods such as salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or adding chemical preservatives. Now some of those things sound okay, pretty good. But of course, it's the chemical preservatives that we all worry about.

That's the thing that I have been working to get out of my diet by trying to move to a clean eating style. So anytime that there are chemicals and preservatives in our foods, I'm going to pay attention and try not to eat that. Now before we talk about some healthy alternatives, we want to talk about why these meats are unhealthy.

Well, preservatives and chemicals, of course, should just, you know, be self-understood. But there have been studies that say that these meats lead to a higher risk of cancer. They are classified as carcinogenic, and some of them are particularly linked to colorectal cancer.

I'm not going to explain that. You heard that. It sounds horrible.

That's what it is. They've been linked to cardiovascular disease, which is the heart disease. The chemicals, again, you heard salt in there, and salt technically shouldn't be too bad.

But some of these processed meats have super high amounts of salt. They have unhealthy saturated fats and nitrates. I don't know what nitrates are.

And when I looked them up, the definition says that they are compounds of nitrogen and oxygen that occur naturally in the environment and are also processed synthetically. Now, naturally, they are essential for plant growth, but they are also used commonly in fertilizers and can have significant impacts on human health and the environment when they are present in excess. So those were the things that I noticed about that.

Now, one of the things that I also could not do is, many of you know that I use the Yuka app, Y-U-K-A. And that's an app where I will scan the barcode of the foods that I purchased. And Yuka would tell me, you know, if the item is good, if it has additives, if it's organic, what the levels of fiber, protein, all of that stuff are, also calories, sodium, and all of that.

But I'm signed up for the free version. I'm not signed up. I chose not to pay for one of their premium subscriptions just yet.

So I can't just simply type in bacon to do a search. And the reason that I would love to do that, and I will consider a subscription, is when you scan an item with Yuka, not only does it tell you whether it's good or bad, gives you the negatives and positives, it also will give recommendations of higher quality food. So that was what I thought I would do, is go in and type in bacon and see what the alternatives were.

But I can't do that. So if any of you are using the Yuka app and have paid for their premium subscription, let me know and see what you came up with. But if I just do a search through one of the IA engines, and I've got a couple that I use, the healthy alternatives really, of course, are first, plant-based, which many of these I say, ewe, because it's things like tofu, beans, nuts, seeds, grilled eggplant.

Don't know if I like any of those. Yeah, I eat beans. I eat nuts, but I'm not a seed guy and definitely not a tofu person.

There are seafood alternatives, things like canned tuna or salmon, so yes, I can eat those. There are poultry options, grilled chicken or turkey breast, yay, big fans of those. And then of course, protein sources, which include hard-boiled eggs, hummus, and peanut butter.

Two out of three ain't bad. I don't think I've ever had hummus. Don't know what it is.

And then of course, they just talk about tips for reducing processed meat consumption. And of course, the first thing on the list, prepare homemade alternatives where you bake and slice your own meats for sandwiches. I have not checked with Kim to see if she would do that, but that's on there.

Experiment with flavors, using spices to replicate the flavors in processed meats. Choose plant-forward dishes. And there's a thing on here called Mediterranean or DASH diets.

I'm not looking that up right now because I don't want to have a 30-minute show on stuff I don't understand. But for those of you that may know what the DASH diet is, there you go. Make creative sandwiches.

Try combinations like avocado with hummus. There's that word again. Or cream cheese or berry compote.

I don't know how that's pronounced. And then of course, opt for fresh meats. And again, fish, grilled chicken, or organic red meat.

So those are some of the alternatives. Now, the other thing I did as part of this article, because the article did also, each item that it listed, it did give alternatives, but they just weren't specific. And I went to look at the sources, not only in this article, but also of the alternatives that I got from the AI.

Because one of the things that you'll hear me say is just don't always trust what you hear. And that includes me, folks, you're listening to me. I'm not a health professional.

And I'm bringing on people. Some of them might be, some of them are not. They're just doing what works for them on their journey.

But we're all going to get our information from somewhere. So I was going through the sources that I was getting my information from, and I'll just talk about this one source. And it is the article that this other, well, one of the articles that this other article referenced, where it said processed meat is linked with chronic disease.

And not only did it mention heart disease, but it mentioned high blood pressure, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is COPD, bowel and stomach cancer, and some other things. Talks about the nitrates on there. But I wanted to find out, okay, Healthline.com sounds like a pretty good place.

Sounds like something where we should all get our information from. So when I went to look up Healthline, I basically asked these questions. I asked, what is it? Who runs it? And is it a good source for health information? And those are the criteria that I'm going to try to use whenever I'm doing any research going forward.

So if you hear me talking about sources and stuff, this is what I'm going to try to do with each and every one of them. So the information I got on Healthline.com is that it is now considered to be the flagship website of Healthline Media, which is an American provider of health information, and that organization is based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1999, and Healthline has grown to become the top-ranked health information site in the United States.

It surpassed WebMD in January of 2020 with over 72.9 million unique monthly visitors. So that tells you how persuasive this site is. Healthline Media is owned by a company called Red Ventures, which acquired Healthline in July of 2019.

Their mission is to empower people to be their strongest and healthiest selves by providing trustworthy and accessible health information. So that's the website. And in terms of whether it's credible or not, so who runs it? Behind the website, it employs 120 vetted writers with more than 100 doctors and clinicians to review and validate its articles.

They follow a rigorous editorial process focused on earning trust and maintaining high journalistic standards, prioritizing accuracy and inclusion, and continually monitoring and updating content. So on the surface, it's considered to be a place of good quality content. So I did find a con to all of this.

There was a study in 2020 that ranked Healthline as the second hardest to read among top health websites, potentially making it less accessible to some readers. And critics have questioned the quality of certain articles, noting instances of promotional language and reliance on non-peer-reviewed studies. And as of May 2024, some sources consider Healthline to be fairly unreliable, citing issues with accurately citing information about new medications and therapies.

So I will link a couple of the things in here. Of course, you guys can go off and do your own research. But that is something I found interesting when following up an article that talked about 15 unhealthy things we eat, even though we know it's bad for us, and then looking at the alternatives, some of these sites that are offering alternatives, yes, they all sound good on the surface, but overall might be questionable in what they do.

That was pretty much it. I did want to start this conversation. I will probably, I don't know if I'm going to go through the others on that list, but these are the types of things that, as I bring on my guests, we'll probably talk about an article that is out there and do a little deeper dive, especially when it says that thing, you know, you know, to, especially when it says that this is healthy or this is unhealthy.

Those are the things that I'm going to try to pay attention to. So that was pretty much it. I, like I said, I wanted to go back and tidy up where I left off with my last show because I knew that I had stuff to talk about.

I just didn't have the sheet in front of me. And that was it. So take that information and go out and live healthy and be happy.

Holla!