Are smoked foods healthy?

#1

I think – though not 100% sure – that smoked foods sometimes cause strange allergy-type swellings on my face, tongue, etc. I’ve never been able to identify the cause of what docs call my “idiopathic angioedema”. It’s not 100% predictable, and it’s definitely not just smoked foods. But I’ve always been suspicious of smoked foods as one culprit. Bacon worries me especially.

But beyond my unique situation, what do others think about smoked foods? Aren’t combustion products from smoke carcinogenic? Don’t they accumulate in the food, leading to the smokey flavor? I’m struggling with bacon especially. It is a core keto food, but I’m not yet convinced it is healthy even if nitrate-free, organic, all natural. Thoughts?

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #2

Much ado about very little in my humble opinion.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #3

Nitrosamines occur in plant foods in much greater abundance than they do in smoked meats, but they don’t cause concern. My belief is that if smoked meat was noticeably detrimental to our health, someone would probably have noticed over the past couple of hundred thousand years. And moreover, even if there is some slight cancer risk from smoked meat, it is probably much less than the risk from eating tainted, unpreserved meat.

(Central Florida Bob ) #4

Can you accept approximately true? Some combustion products might be carcinogenic. Some smoking methods don’t generate combustion at all (electric smokers are the easiest example). Ever seen the pink ring in a smoked pork or brisket? It’s hard to get that with an electric smoker, but you get the smoke flavor. Ever seen the bark on smoked meat? It’s like 1/16" thick. You can just not eat that and avoid all of the smoke products (mixed with whatever the meat was rubbed with).

If you read the technical literature on smoking, the smoke products stay in a thin layer that’s exposed to the smoke. The molecules are too big to diffuse into the meat.

I don’t know much about commercial bacon production, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they used a liquid smoke product to add the flavor.

#5
(Doug) #6

It’s definitely involving different chemicals. I suspect that Bob is right -

And I’m also guessing that the dosage would matter, i.e. ‘enough’ of a huge number of things could eventually be shown to have risk of cancer. Can’t argue with individual sensitivities, but the “smoked” part of smoked meat is way down on my list of things to worry about.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #7

Thomas Seyfreid strongly believes that cancer is caused by oxidative damage to the mitochondria resulting from improper (i.e., high-carb) diet.

#8

It needn’t be. I rarely eat it and have been low carb or keto for near enough a decade.

#9

-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IARC_Group_1_Agents_-_Carcinogenic_to_humans

Protein promotes growth of healthy and cancerous cells.
Carbs feed cancer cells.

#10

@PaulL - interesting points in the video. I thought the comment/question from the woman at the end was an important one. So much of the meat or meat products most readily available to us today are full of garbage. And I would not be surprised if messed up microbiomes explained a lot of why some of us respond so differently to different foods.