A report by the World Health Organisation has said that eating processed meat can raise the risk for humans to get colon cancer.  There is also evidence that eating red meat again can be bad for you, but the evidence seems to be more clear-cut when it comes to actual processed meat.  By processed meat they mean meat like hot dogs, corn beef, the various slices of meat that you can get at a delicatessen including ham, etc.  The more processed meat you have, said an expert at the Agency, the greater your risk of developing colon cancer as you get older.  The risk is so high that they have put processed meat in the Group 1 category which is a category reserved for items where they say there is sufficient evidence to show that they cause cancer and other members of Group 1 would include smoking tobacco and exposure to asbestos!  They say that smoking tobacco and asbestos are more dangerous – which is somewhat of a relief, but the very fact that it is in the same group means that processed meat is best avoided.  

On the other hand, it is amazing that so many people have made such good money out of selling processed meat to us, because although it is not true of all processed meats, such as bacon, many processed meats are in fact the undesirable parts of an animal, which nobody would buy in a butchery, and putting them together and then making one pay more for it!  The WHO defines processed meat as anything which is transformed to improve its flavour or preserve it and that would include, for example, biltong if in any way flavourings are added.