Processed meat. (Photo/dr carney)
Kenyans are known to have uncontrollable love for sausages, or ‘smokies’ as commonly known. The fact that it is a fast snack, easily available, cheap and has that tantalizing taste that makes your taste buds explode for more has made sausages the new additive treat in town.
Research has shown that eating one sausage or three rashers of bacon a day can increase the risk of bowel cancer by a fifth. As it is, almost half of all cancers can be prevented by change of lifestyle.
This change of lifestyle, one being avoiding processed meat, and the sausages fall under this category.
Processed meat is preserved by smoking, curing, salting or the addition of preservatives. Other processed meat include ham, bacon and hot dogs.It is recommended that people eat less than 500g of red meat a week and avoid processed meat at all cost. Processed meat increases risk of bowel cancer by many ways, but majorly because processing can produce several cancer-causing substances including N-nitroso compounds, a common preservative in processed meat.