Eating less or no meat

 HAPPY WEEKEND

Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province -- I was aghast to find tocino for supper one evening. That red ugly, meat was cooked by a niece who lives somewhere else so I told her to please refrain from cooking and eating frozen meat, preserved meat, processed meat as these kinds of food are carcinogenic. In nearly all processed meats are nitrates and nitrites which turn into carcinogenic nitrosamines as medical notes say.

Thoughts run high of people afflicted with cancer and diabetes and kidney failure and all these ailments in the body which has something to do with eating foods with lots of chemicals alien to the body.

While I would like to enjoy the remaining  years of my life  breathing with none of these dreaded  diseases, this means doing away with buying and eating processed foods and  eat  as much as possible what we grow in the garden - camote leaves, sayote shoots, camote, gabi, bananas, and  this much publicized organic food- and breathe better.

Yes. That includes evading fast food we like so much sold fast in our favorite fast food chains,that tasty meat, delicious meat, and more processed meat either mixed with other food or eaten solo doused with coke.

Many processed foods contain Tran’s fatty acids of a dangerous type of fat. According to the American Heart Association, these types of foods tend to raise bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol while increasing the risk of heart disease. I’m talking about evading processed meat and all processed foods.  

And while that is so, I’m trying very hard to justify that cultural etag (smoked meat) mixed with chicken meat -- tasty pinikpikan culturally eaten for ceremonial purposes and now for any other regular meal.  At least this food is not processed.

Of course the chicken that goes with the contemporary pinikpikan nowadays must have been fed with lots of chemicalized feed which is the same as processed meat ugh.

A study of 200,000 people by the University of Hawaii found that “people who ate the most processed meats to include hot dogs, sausage had a 67 percent higher risk of pancreatic cancer than those who ate little or no meat products.”

A Canadian study of over 400 men aged 50 to 80 found similar results. Men whose eating habits fell into the "processed" pattern  of  eating processed meats, red meat, organ meats, refined go aims, vegetable oils and soft drinks had a significantly higher risk of prostate cancer than men in the other groups.  Men who ate the most processed foods had a 2.5-fold increased prostate cancer risk.”

And right in your own locality you can see the rise of cancer and hypertension related ailments since then and now. Here in Mountain Province, the rise of hypertension related diseases and cancer called lifestyle diseases were noted in the past ten years says Dr Clare Lalwet of Sagada’s St Theodore’s Hospital and Provincial Health Officer Dr Penny Domogo. Both doctors say the prevalence of these diseases has something to do with eating cancer-prone food.

And before we start blaming climate change, we start taking note of our diet and that includes doing away with that tempting, quick stirring coffee called 3 in 1.