Processed meat generally refers to meats preserved by smoking, curing, salting or otherwise adding chemicals, such as sodium nitrite. Many studies over the years have examined whether they increase risk of cancer and other diseases, and concluded that they have.

In the 1970s, scientists thought the culprit was the additive, sodium nitrite, which gives processed meats their taste and characteristic pink hue, and acts as a preservative. But Professor Levente Diosady, Director of the Food Engineering Program in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at the University of Toronto, says sodium nitrite doesn’t pose a health risk directly, though it can react with amines that occur naturally in foods like cheese and meat to form tiny amounts of nitrosamines, which are carcinogens.

But it looks like sodium nitrite itself is not a bad thing—and it exists naturally in vegetables, particularly celery, lettuce, beets, radishes and spinach, which absorb sodium nitrate from the soil.

So what is the problem with processed meats? Scientists are not sure. Says Diosady, “If there were a single cause, science would be on top of it by now. It’s complex.”

Experts say it could be the smoking process in smoked meats, the salt, the fat … This much is known: We should be cautious about how much processed meat we eat.

Follow the link to read the full article in Best Health online.