Cancer study gets mixed reaction from Sonoma County meat producers

Local butchers and meat processors have mixed reactions to a new World Health Organization announcement that found processed meat increases the risk of colon and stomach cancer and fresh red meat is probably linked to the disease.

The report, and resulting media coverage this week, has caused alarm throughout the meat industry and the meat-eating public, but local butchers and meat processors are not ready to close up shop. In an area where the terms 'sustainable' and 'grass-fed' are more commonly heard than 'bologna' and 'spam,' many purveyors of beef, sausage and bacon in the North Bay said their artisanal products don't fit into the same category as the meat in the study.

'I'm grateful that there are studies like this and they get people to think, but do we need to react dramatically? I don't think so,' said Molly Best, owner of Thistle Meats in Petaluma, a butcher shop that sources ethically raised whole animals from local ranchers and processes their meat.

Best said if you eat meat that comes from a healthy environment with limited stress and no antibiotics or hormones, it will be better for you than eating meat from a feedlot.

'If you eat sick animals, you're going to get sick — I don't think (the study) addressed that,' she said.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization that conducted the study, defined processed meat as anything that is 'transformed to enhance flavour or improve preservation,' and classified it as a carcinogen based on research that shows it causes colorectal cancer. Red meat, which was defined as 'beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse or goat,' was declared as 'probably carcinogenic' based on limited evidence that it causes colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer and prostate cancer.

The IARC stopped short of making a direct connection between chemicals like nitrites, nitrates and hydrocarbons and cancer, despite the fact that these elements have long been associated with the disease. It also did not enumerate differences between conventionally raised or processed meat and meat that is considered sustainable.

Many local butcher shops and meat processing companies sell some of the processed items that appear on the IARC list, like jerky, bacon and bologna, but insist that their products are the exception.

'I personally feel they're talking about the larger companies that contain a lot of salt and words that we cannot pronounce,' said Stephen Rasmussen, co-owner of Roundman's Smokehouse in Fort Bragg.

Rasmussen's company sells smoked meat products made in house, primarily from locally sourced meat. It also offers custom processing to other meat producers and distributors in the North Bay. Rasmussen, like Best at Thistle Meats, said his company uses only a few simple ingredients in its products. And, as Best explained, if you have the skills to process meat effectively, it's not necessary to add in other chemicals or additives that might be found in more commercial products. In fact, she said, customers can buy frankfurters and bologna at her store that have minimal processing and only ingredients like salt, fat and spices.

To come up with its findings, the IARC reviewed more than 800 previous studies that had investigated associations between cancer and the consumption of red or processed meat in different countries and populations. The most influential evidence, it said, came from the past 20 years.

While this research is not new, it is the first time it's being publicized by a large and authoritative health organization like WHO. The IARC went so far as to specify that each 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 percent.

But in a country where the USDA calculates total consumption of beef to be 24.1 billion pounds per year, will this information change eating habits?

'People will pay attention for a minute or 10, but then they will forget,' said Jill Nussinow, a culinary educator also known as 'The Veggie Queen.' 'I don't think it's going to turn people into vegetarians this week or next,' she said.

Nussinow said that in her 'perfect world,' people's diets would be 90 percent plants and that if this study decreases people's consumption of processed meat at all, it would be an improvement. 'People eat far too much meat,' she said.

The solution put forth by butchers like Best and Rasmussen to eat only sustainably raised and processed meat doesn't work for everybody, she said. 'If you really look at what people can do, that's not the meat they're eating,' Nussinow said.

But Adam Parks, co-owner of Victorian Farmstead Meats in Sebastopol, said that, at least in Sonoma or Marin counties, consumers' options for alternative sources of meat are vast.

'There are all kinds of cuts of meat that are totally affordable. People just need to be open to that,' he said. 'You can get marrow steaks that make killer osso bucco for $8 a pound.'

Parks' company sells fresh and processed meat from local ranchers at his butcher stand in the Community Market in Sebastopol, through a meat CSA and at farmers' markets throughout the Bay Area. What's more, he said, meat that is raised on pasture is more nutrient-dense because of the animals' diets. So if this meat provides more nutrients, you can eat a smaller amount of it, he said — something that people on both sides of the meat-eating aisle agree is better for your health.

'We're not trying to get people to eat a lot of hormone-packed, antibiotic-ridden meat,' said Jenine Alexander, co-owner of Sonoma County Meat Co.'The point is eat less meat and eat better meat.'

In fact, the only dietary recommendation the IARC put forth as a result of the study is to limit the intake of meat, said Dr. Christopher Wild, director of the IARC. Furthermore, it stated that meat has nutritional value that should be considered and recommended that people 'balance the risks and benefits of eating red meat and processed meat.'

And although the IARC has now placed red meat in the same danger category as asbestos and cigarettes, the number of cases of cancer that are linked to each substance distinguishes them from each other.

In its report, the IARC noted research by the Global Burden of Disease Project suggesting that 34,000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are linked to diets heavy in processed meat. That compared with 1 million deaths a year linked to smoking, 600,000 a year to alcohol consumption and 200,000 a year to air pollution.

'The fact that breathing causes cancer because of air pollution, or wine, coffee, the sun — it's really about moderation,' said Alexander.

Instead of decreasing her sales, Alexander thinks that the majority of her customers will consider the nuances of the report and continue to buy her meat.

Rasmussen goes further and said that the study might actually have a positive effect on his bottom line. Studies that link meat to health risks usually encourage people to find out more about the origin of their meat, he said. And this is information that small meat companies like his can provide.

'There's no reason you can't enjoy the food you eat,' he said. 'You just have to be aware.'

The Associated Press contributed to this story.