It’s probably not something you think about every day, whether or not the foods you are eating could contain carcinogens, but with almost 1.5 million people diagnosed with some type of cancer just last year. Here is a list of the top 9 foods that you most likely consume every day that may contain carcinogens or be suspected of causing cancer.
1. Processed Meats
What exactly are processed meats? This is a long list that includes, but is not limited to, sausages, hot dogs, bacon, most lunch meats like bologna or pimento loaf.
The journal of BMC Medicine said that the excessive salts and chemicals that are used when making processed meats are damaging to your health.
Processed meats contain numerous chemicals and preservatives, including sodium nitrates, which make them, look appealing and fresh but are well known carcinogens.
2. Microwave Popcorn
Those little bags of popcorn are so convenient to just stick in the microwave, you wouldn’t think for a minute that they could be dangerous to your health.
According to Wikipedia, conventional microwave popcorn bags are lined with a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid ( PFOA). Numerous studies in lab animals and humans show that exposure to PFOA significantly increases the risk of kidney, bladder, liver, pancreas and testicular cancers.
3. Potato Chips
Yes, we know, potato chips are cheap, great tasting, quick snack, however, the negative effects they have on your body may not be worth the little bit of pleasure you derive from these crispy snacks.
Potato chips are high in both fat and calories, which are sure to bring on weight gain. Besides being full of trans-fats which can cause high cholesterol in most people, they have excessive sodium levels which, for many people, cause high blood pressure.
Potato chips are fried in high temperatures to make them crispy but this also causes them to make a material called acrylamide, a known carcinogen that is also found in cigarettes.
It’s hard to say no to your kids demands for chips sometimes, therefore, as a sneaky alternative, buy them baked potato chips or tortilla chips which are at least lower in both fat and calories.
4. Foods that are highly salted, pickled, or smoked
Foods that are cured by use of nitrates or nitrites act as preservatives as well as adding color to the meat.
Although nitrates do not cause cancer in and of themselves, under certain conditions these chemicals change once they are inside the body into N-nitroso composites. It’s this N-nitroso that is associated with a greater increase the risk of developing cancers.
Meats such as bacon, sausage, bologna, and salami are high in fat and salt. Pickled foods are also very high in salts. There is overwhelming evidence that eating these types of foods greatly increases the risk of colorectal cancer and higher rates of stomach cancer.
5. Highly processed white flours
Refining grains destroys its natural nutrients. Mills are no longer content with waiting for their flour to whiten with time; mills now bleach flour with a chemical called chlorine gas.
White flour lurks in many processed foods. White processed flour has a very high glycemic rate which quickly raises the blood sugar level and insulin levels, which can be a direct cause of diabetes, not to mention it is believed that it spreads cancer cells by feeding the cells directly.
Cancerous tumors feed mostly on the sugars in your bloodstream. By avoiding refined grains such as white flour, you can avoid, or at the very least, starve tumors.
6. Refined Sugars
Refined sugars are not only known to spike insulin levels, but also to be the most preferable food for cancer cells, thus promoting their growth.
German Otto Warburg, back in 1931, first discovered that tumors and cancers both use sugars to “feed” themselves and/or to increase in size. In order to proliferate, cancer cells seem to prefer feeding on fructose-rich sweeteners like high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS); the reason is that HFCS is being metabolized by cancer cells most quickly and easily.
Now it is clear why high-fructose corn syrup is considered the worst offender. And since cakes, pies, cookies, sodas, juices, sauces, cereals and many other extremely popular, mostly processed, food items are loaded with refined sugars.
7. Alcohol
Alcohol use is the second leading cause of cancer, right behind tobacco use. While a moderate or low consumption of alcohol can be healthy and lead to a reduced risk of heart disease, excessive drinking is known to cause heart failure, stroke, and sudden death.
Experts working for the World Health Organizations International Agency for Research on Cancer looked at the scientific evidence regarding cancer is that excessive alcohol use is the main cause of mouth, esophagus, liver, colon, mouth, rectum, and female breast cancers.
Don’t fret! You can still enjoy that glass of wine with dinner, but, for your health’s sake, no more than one!
8. Red Meat
There is evidence that shows that red meat is actually a good thing in your diet, in small, infrequent amounts, Grass fed beef contains conjugated linoleic acid that actually fights against certain cancers.
A research study has shown that eating a lot of red meat increased the risk of breast, prostate, and colon cancer. Red meat seems particularly dangerous when talking about colon cancer. The long term consumption of red meat significantly increased the amount of colon cancer found in the subjects studied.
9. Non-organic fruits
Fruits that are non-organic are contaminated with some very dangerous pesticides such as atrazine, thiodicarb, and organophosphates, as well as high nitrogen fertilizers.
Conventional foods are also subjected to an enormous amount of types’ chemicals as well as hormones, to make the fruit and veggies grow bigger. Apples are probably the worst offenders with pesticides showing on more than 98 per cent of all apples tested. Fruits with a 90 per cent positive rate of pesticide residue included oranges, strawberries, and grapes.
Washing fruit does not remove 100 per cent of the residue. Pesticides are toxic chemicals to insects as well as human beings.