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Comment by wombatmobile | Hacker News Reader

Eat fresh food - fruit, vegetables, nuts. Meat is ok but not processed like sausages. Beware of sauces that have a lot of sugar.

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I just... don't understand the science behind this. Have you actually seen how sausage is made? It is just pureed meat with salt and spices. There is no difference between that and a raw steak, from a health perspective. This tells me most of our knowledge of what is an unhealthy food is just based off of some from-the-heart intuition.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/mar/07/are-sau...

For sausages and bacon and similar cured red meat, the issue is that processing often involves nitrites, which create carcinogenic compounds and are associated with colon cancer specifically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curing_(food_preservation)#Nit...

Still, the added risk is not massive and unless you eat bacon and sausage every day, there are probably other and more important carcinogenic factors in your life that you need to care more about. The calories and saturated fats in most cured red meats are more likely to adversely affect your health.

I think the key is how much the "expected" recipes can be stretched while the food can still be called <whatever> i.e. how many additives & preservatives you can mix in and still call it a sausage.

While fibrous fruits are healthier than just drinking sugary juice, it depends a lot on the fruit, some are naturally high in sugar.

Again, it's more on the actual details of the food (e.g sugar density) rather than labels like "fresh".

> Meat is ok but not processed like sausages

Why, what's wrong with sausages? Does mincing a steak and putting it in a case make a difference?

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/mar/07/are-sau...

From the same article:

  Is there anything I can look for on the label that will lead me to a healthy sausage?

Implying sausages are not blanket "unhealthy", i.e #NotAllSausages

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