PRESERVED MEATS
Preserved meats include bacon, Canadian bacon, sausage, hot dogs, and cold
cuts. Cured meats are extremely high in sodium, which is bad for your blood
pressure. The meat fillers used in some cured meats may contain allergy-
triggering components.
So move over, cold cuts and bacon. Preserved meats have no place at any time
or in any amount on the Perfect 10 Diet . The same goes for smoked meats, if
you want to stay healthy. This type of meat preservation was invented before
refrigeration to keep meats free from the harmful effects of unhealthy
microorganisms.
Exactly what constitutes “smoked” or “cured” meat can be somewhat
confusing. One would assume that if something is smoked, it has been exposed
to smoke. Wrong. Commercially available food products that are smoked have
most likely not been touched by real smoke at all. Rather, a chemical liquid
smoke is used to flavor the meat. Liquid smoke contains hundreds of dangerous
chemicals, some of which are known carcinogens. In cured meats, nitrites are
injected via a special process, and that’s bad in every way to your hormones and
health.
I’ve explained earlier that lowcarb diets help you balance insulin, and that’s
why you lose weight. That’s great, but wait a minute—that improvement is
temporary. Lowcarb diets eventually damage the same hormone they initially
help balance, just like low-fat diets. According to a 2002 study published in the
journal Diabetes Care, researchers found that a diet of hot dogs, bologna, and
bacon (often the choices on lowcarb diets) increased the risk of type 2 diabetes
by about 48 percent in men. The project, which began in 1986, followed 40,000
men aged 40 to 75 who were healthy and free of diabetes or cancer for a period
of 12 years. By the end of the study, it became clear that processed meats were
an independent risk factor for diabetes, and get a load of this—the American
Diabetes Association (ADA) has voiced its support of lowcarb diets for the
management of diabetes. The endorsement was part of the ADA’s 2008 Clinical
Practice Recommendations, which are intended to guide diabetes health-care
providers. This endorsement leaves me speechless.
With or without an official endorsement, the Atkins, Zone, and South Beach
diets are now more popular than ever. Beware: this greatness is like the Titanic;
it won’t get you very far, as it’s destined to sink. If you’re on one of these diets,
get off it immediately, before it’s too late. Eating processed meats is associated
with increased total mortality, according to several studies. One large study that
was published in the Archives of Internal Medicines in March 2009 showed
increases in total mortality, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Some of the types