Is it true that sausages cause cancer? Can you still eat sausages?

Recently, an online news that "eating sausages causes cancer" has attracted much attention. Roasted sausage is a favorite snack for many children and young people. Vendors selling sausages can be seen everywhere in schools, railway stations, shopping malls and other places, and they are very cheap. The price is between 1 yuan and 4 yuan, which can be said to be one of the delicious and cheap foods. But how much meat does these delicious and cheap sausages contain? What kind of meat is used? Will it cause cancer to our bodies?

The common sausages on the market are generally "crisp bone sausage", "black pepper sausage" and "pure meat sausage". The prices of these sausages are also quite cheap. Some of them are only a few cents, and the boss will clap his chest and swear to tell you that they are definitely pork sausages. In fact, the meat content in these sausages is very small, and it can even be said that there is basically no meat. The price of pork is generally more than ten yuan a catty. If this catty of pork is made into sausage, it is estimated that it can be made into 3~4 pieces. The retail price of this cheap sausage in the supermarket is only one yuan, and the wholesale price is even cheaper than you think. As the saying goes, no one wants to do business at a loss, let alone smart business.

In fact, most of the sausages we eat now are made of imitation meat. The national standard only stipulates the protein content in sausages, but not the meat content in sausages. Therefore, smart merchants mainly add soy protein as the main raw material when making sausages. If you look at the ingredients list of sausage yourself, you will find that food additives such as sodium pyrophosphate, potassium sorbate and nitrite are added to the sausage to increase the taste and color of the sausage.

Nitrite will be added in the processing of sausage, which is both a preservative and a color fixative. Although nitrite will not produce carcinogens, nitrite will be converted into nitrosamines in the human body, which will lead to esophageal cancer and gastric cancer after long-term consumption. Nitrite can enter the fetus through the placenta, and infants within 6 months are particularly sensitive to nitrate. Long-term consumption of food containing nitrite by pregnant women has teratogenic effect on the fetus. Excessive intake of nitrite can lead to methemoglobinemia in children. Because a large amount of nitrite in human body combines with hemoglobin in blood, the content of methemoglobin will increase, because methemoglobin can not combine with oxygen, which will lead to hypoxia and even death. In fact, many cooked foods we see are added with nitrite. Normal cooked meat is dark red in color, while cooked foods with nitrite will be very bright in color.

In the high-temperature barbecue of meat food with open fire, the fat will decompose or polymerize at high temperature to produce harmful substances, such as benzopyrene. Benzopyrene is an organic compound with obvious carcinogenic effect. According to research, when the content of benzopyrene in living environment increases by 65438 0%, the mortality rate of lung cancer increases by 5%.

Sausages containing a lot of food additives belong to a class of carcinogens assessed by the World Health Organization. When these additives are metabolized in human body, they will increase the burden on liver and kidney, induce diseases of liver and kidney, and even lead to fetal malformation and carcinogenesis in severe cases. Experts remind that cheap sausages contain very little nutrients, so it is not recommended for people to eat them for a long time for their own health.