Should processed meats be banned from schools and hospitals cafeterias ?

joefromireland

Should Irish hospitals and schools ban processed meats from been served in their cafeterias?

I ask the question because last week the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates adopted a resolution calling on american hospitals to provide plant-based meals choices and remove processed meats from the menus.

Should Ireland lead the way like we did with the smoking ban by banning processed meats from all hospitals and school menus.

This resolution was co-sponsored by the Medical Society of the District of Columbia and the American College of Cardiology.

The wording of the resolution was, the American Medical Association hereby call on US hospitals to improve the health of patients, staff, and visitors by (1) providing a variety of healthful food, including plant-based meals and meals that are low in fat, sodium, and added sugars, (2) eliminating processed meats from menus, and (3) providing and promoting healthful beverages.”

The resolution was co-sponsored by the Medical Society of the District of Columbia and the American College of Cardiology.

The AMA’s recommendation, to remove processed meat from menus, is supported by strong scientific evidence. The World Health Organization warns that processed meats, including hot dogs, and bacon, are “carcinogenic to humans” and there is no amount safe for consumption.

Is it time to act now and nudge people towards healthier eating by no longer supplying these foods in our schools and hospitals?

seamus

At the launch of the new Children's Hospital recently, the finger food provided was wedges, cocktail sausages, mini spring rolls and chicken wings.

I'm not sure Irish institutions understand food well enough to make these changes. As a nation we've been incredibly slow to get rid of the old "any old food will do" mindset from when we were dirt poor.

Even our hipster notions are variations on greasy carbohydrates, meat and chocolate. Pulled pork, baps, and doughnuts.

ThisRegard

Nothing wrong with processed meats as long as like everything else, you eat in moderation and the stuff you do eat is of good quality.

Those Americans might be better concerning themselves with the relatively poor food standards and what they allow the farm animals to consume over there.

Are Am Eye

You'll only push it underground and into the hands of the criminal gangs.
Prohibition will not work in the War on Rashers.

suicide_circus

Processed meats are part of my culture, hands off my wiener you hippies.

What is an unprocessed meat?
Do you take a bite out of a cow?

Carlos Orange

Only a matter of time before liberals try to ban meat. And I'm not even joking.
Smoking bans are about harming other people not harming yourself.

Are Am Eye

Deleted User wrote: »

Do you take a bite out of a cow?

I think you might have the simple decency to kill the cow first

GLaDOS

Do many schools actually have cafeterias in Ireland?

Mine certainly didn't.

Neyite

The HSE never will ban them because processed meat is cheap and our health service is already a shambles.

Actually the Americans pretty much eat processed everything.

You see a recipe for a cake and it's like "open a box of yellow cake mix and add oil" and that's the full recipe right there. I'm subscribed to a slow cooker FB group that has lots of US members and for things like a chicken casserole they have a tin of chicken pieces, tins of vegetables and tins of stock or whatever as their recipe.

Here in Ireland we've excellent home grown meat, veg and dairy. You look at any US cook show and their butter is off-white, ours is properly yellow. I'd bet that even our chicken nuggets produced here and processed to bejaysus have more nutrition than theirs.

28064212

joefromireland wrote: »

The World Health Organization warns that processed meats, including hot dogs, and bacon, are “carcinogenic to humans” and there is no amount safe for consumption.

That's not true. The recommendation from WHO is "that people who eat meat should moderate the consumption of processed meat to reduce the risk of colorectal cancer" (http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/)

Also, the figures are not exactly terrifying, unless it's making up a significant part of your diet (https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/world-health-organization-says-processed-meat-causes-cancer.html):

Eating 50 grams of processed meat every day increased the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. That’s the equivalent of about 4 strips of bacon or 1 hot dog... Overall, the lifetime risk of someone developing colon cancer is 5%. To put the numbers into perspective, the increased risk from eating the amount of processed meat in the study would raise average lifetime risk to almost 6%.

Guy:Incognito

Schools should concern themselves with education first. Such as teaching the difference between been and being. In fact it would do no harm to have lessons in hospitals too.

andekwarhola

It's not a bad idea but the minute I sense the vegan \vegetarian finger wagging lobby, I instantly want to eat processed meat until I collapse.

Yourself isit

Neyite wrote: »

The HSE never will ban them because processed meat is cheap and our health service is already a shambles.

Actually the Americans pretty much eat processed everything.

You see a recipe for a cake and it's like "open a box of yellow cake mix and add oil" and that's the full recipe right there. I'm subscribed to a slow cooker FB group that has lots of US members and for things like a chicken casserole they have a tin of chicken pieces, tins of vegetables and tins of stock or whatever as their recipe.

Here in Ireland we've excellent home grown meat, veg and dairy. You look at any US cook show and their butter is off-white, ours is properly yellow. I'd bet that even our chicken nuggets produced here and processed to bejaysus have more nutrition than theirs.

Do you make your own stock?

Jayop

No but the quality of food served in hospitals should improve. I've not seen any schools down here with a full canteen like we had up north serving a choice of dinners, but even then 20 to 30 years ago we only got processed foods or chips once a week.

Loads of lovely salami and chorizo would be a good improvement.

Neyite

Yourself isit wrote: »

Do you make your own stock?

Mostly, yes. Not that there is anything wrong with using a stock cube, which I do when I've no stock in the freezer.

Jayop

Yourself isit wrote: »

Do you make your own stock?

Hardly difficult is it?

Yourself isit

Jayop wrote: »

Hardly difficult is it?

It's fairly time consuming.

I make a fair a mount if stews, and casseroles and wouldn't bother.

Jayop

Yourself isit wrote: »

It's fairly time consuming.

I make a fair a mount if stews, and casseroles and wouldn't bother.

If I had some stock to hand from something I had cooked recently I'll use that but otherwise stick in a stock cube.

Are Am Eye

Yourself isit wrote: »

It's fairly time consuming.

I make a fair a mount if stews, and casseroles and wouldn't bother.

Stew is what people eat before they invented pizza.

freshpopcorn

Jayop wrote: »

Loads of lovely salami and chorizo would be a good improvement.

I was always lead to believe that Salami was one of the worst processed meats!

Jayop

freshpopcorn wrote: »

I was always lead to believe that Salami was one of the worst processed meats!

I'd have no doubt about that, it's fecking lovely though. And more of a nibble thing to have whereas with a typical irish breakfast you'd have a full plate of processed meats stacked up.

freshpopcorn

Jayop wrote: »

I'd have no doubt about that, it's fecking lovely though. And more of a nibble thing to have whereas with a typical irish breakfast you'd have a full plate of processed meats stacked up.

The last time I had Salami I ate a packet of it! It was a lot more than a nibble.

Jayop

freshpopcorn wrote: »

The last time I had Salami I ate a packet of it! It was a lot more than a nibble.

lol, yeah I can fall foul to that the odd time, especially after a few beers.

MadDog76

The problem isn't what kids/people are eating in schools/hospitals .......... the problem is what kids/people are eating at home.

Peregrine

GLaDOS wrote: »

Do many schools actually have cafeterias in Ireland?

Mine certainly didn't.

That was my first thought. What school cafeterias?

Are Am Eye

No cafeteria?
Gee, what did you do during recess?

eeguy

Peregrine wrote: »

That was my first thought. What school cafeterias?

We had a chipper van outside our school at lunchtimes. Probably would be banned now.

Given the amount of tubby kids it's probably for the best.

freshpopcorn

Are Am Eye wrote: »

No cafeteria?
Gee, what did you do during recess?

Go down town!

jimmycrackcorm

What would be the point of going to a hospital if you couldn't get a decent hang sandwich?

eeguy

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

What would be the point of going to a hospital if you couldn't get a decent hang sandwich?

To catch MRSA and get the sick benefit.

nozzferrahhtoo

joefromireland wrote: »

The World Health Organization warns that processed meats, including hot dogs, and bacon, are “carcinogenic to humans” and there is no amount safe for consumption.

Meh it is not as bad as all that. People have over reacted to the reclassification of bacon and processed meats in a big way. And WHO is not saying what many think they are.

They classify it as a Group 1 carcinogenic which is not a scale of how likely it is to give you cancer, but a classification of how strong the evidence is that it is a KIND of a carcinogenic.

Of course people not aware of that distinction have noted cigarettes and asbestos are in that group too, so they assumed it means that bacon is as carcinogenic as cigarettes and asbestos and plutonium.

Such meats have been put into a classification whereby if you eat an average of 50g of it per day your risk of developing a particular kind of rectal cancer goes up 18%.

Now in the US for example your average risk of getting that cancer anyway is around 5%. So someone eating 50g of said meat types a day goes from 5% to 5.9%.

That is an 18% increase to your baseline existing risk, not an 18% change or an 18% chance. Hugely difference and hardly an earth shattering leap in statisticals there and that is assuming a daily consistent 50g diet of such meats.

Red Meats are in the IARC category 2A which means that they PROBABLY cause cancer but there is not enough evidence to say that with any certainty.

Anyone with a moderate intake and varied diet probably does not need to be too concerned with hammering down the doors of the local hospital cafeteria. And while school cafeterias are common in the US and the UK, I was not aware they are all that common here in Ireland?

Neyite wrote: »

Actually the Americans pretty much eat processed everything.

Indeed and it does not help that the word "processed" is so vague either. "Processed" tends to mean any food that has been altered/modified from it's original state. Salting or sugaring, canning or preserving are all kinds of processing. Much of our milk is processed.

Short of eating a whole unmodified apple you are probably eating something "processed". And not all processing is bad, such as pasteurization of milk. Freezing is processing too.

So now we have phrases like "Ultra processing" to separate out a different level of processing. And these tend to be the "ready to heat and eat" category of foods that are made up of many individuals processed foods, contain 20 to 40% more sugar and salt than "normal" foods, and are low fiber energy dense in a bad caloric kind of way.

whisky_galore

freshpopcorn wrote: »

I was always lead to believe that Salami was one of the worst processed meats!

The Italians must be fooked so....do they have record levels of cancer??

Alun

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Such meats have been put into a classification whereby if you eat an average of 50g of it per day your risk of developing a particular kind of rectal cancer goes up 18%.

Now in the US for example your average risk of getting that cancer anyway is around 5%. So someone eating 50g of said meat types a day goes from 5% to 5.9%.

That is an 18% increase to your baseline existing risk, not an 18% change or an 18% chance. Hugely difference and hardly an earth shattering leap in statisticals there and that is assuming a daily consistent 50g diet of such meats.

Well said. The maths is important here. The number of people who don't understand percentage increases is staggering, i.e. they think an increase of 18% over 5% means they now have a 23% chance of getting cancer.

nozzferrahhtoo

Alun wrote: »

Well said. The maths is important here. The number of people who don't understand percentage increases is staggering, i.e. they think an increase of 18% over 5% means they now have a 23% chance of getting cancer.

Yea that is a problem. And it is not easy to point to one single thing to blame that problem on. It starts with how we teach basic science and maths in our schools for sure. But our "click bait" media are massively to blame too.

I have lost count of how many times I have seen Daily Fail headlines saying things like "This will increase your chance of X by 50%!!!!" like it is some horror. Then you realize that your original change of getting X was .000001% and is not .000002% or something.

So education is one thing. But click bait shock headlining is another. But there is more as there are always people who want to put a spin on things. More aggressive people against the meat industry for example would be MORE than happy to spin Carcenogenic Bacon statistics to make it sound like "WHO" are saying things they simply are not.

At the end of the day most of the cancer concerns related to diet are mediated by not eating any one food stuff too consistently, and vary your diet as much as possible. But that simple fact does not sell news papers, dietry books, or get clicks on websites.

wil

:pac:

Alun wrote: »

Well said. The maths is important here. The number of people who don't understand percentage increases is staggering, i.e. they think an increase of 18% over 5% means they now have a 23% chance of getting cancer.

Easy misunderstanding. Obviously it's 18 multiplied by 5.:pac:

You just have to live long enough.

Shenshen

The husband did spend a little time in hospital over the last 2 years (over a number of health issues), and ended up bringing in food from home. What I've seen served in UCH, the Mercy and the South Infirmary here was beyond description, it was so poor.
There wasn't a fresh vegetable or a bit of fruit in sight, what veg there was must have been boiled for several hours (presumably in an attempt to make sure it was really, definitely, dead and couldn't assault patients any more), and other than that it was a wide range of mushy, white carbs. Potatoes, pasta, rice, all cooked into sludge.
One very memorable dinner was two slices or white bread with a slice of processed cheese between them.

First thing they ought to ban is bad cooks. And then teach the rest of them about nutrition.
We can talk about how good or bad meat might be once the rest of the food is edible.

nozzferrahhtoo

Shenshen wrote: »

First thing they ought to ban is bad cooks. And then teach the rest of them about nutrition.

I have always intended to learn much more about how public contracts are filled and priced and budgeted and implemented.

It seems to a complete ignorant lay man like me that the right thing to do is put the contracts for feeding our public health patients out to tender and trial. And have a panel test the food, and read the figures and sales proposals from the catering companies.

Surely they would compete and try to put forward the most budget and health and taste conscious offer they can to win the tender and the revenue stream.......... and the patients will get the healthiest best priced food the competition can provide.

How the ACTUAL catering is selected however is any bodies guess but seemingly the procedure must be pretty awful if food is as bad as the many descriptions I have heard about it.

But of course even that is just anecdote and ignorance on my part as I have not heard THAT many reports on the food quality in hospitals. And in fact when my partner was in sligo general with a broken arm recently the food seemed decent enough there with a moderate level of choice and a standard that was not wonderful but still better than you would get on one of those Sunday Carvery Hotel Bar things that people also complain a lot about.

I also sometimes wonder how much of the anecdote is mood biased. After all most people in hospital are not there for good reasons and are not in the best of humor and mood. So one wonders how much that subjectively influences their enjoyment of basic things like food.

A lot to learn I have, and no idea where to start Perhaps someone in the industry and in the know will happen along the thread and post some informative stuff.

Boggy Turf

Hospital food is very poor. It also should be tailored to the patient to aid recovery eg. High iron content for post surgery patients.

Alun

Boggy Turf wrote: »

Hospital food is very poor.

I had the misfortune to be working at a large Dublin hospital for a few months and believe me, the food served up to the staff in the canteen is just as bad

Shenshen

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

But of course even that is just anecdote and ignorance on my part as I have not heard THAT many reports on the food quality in hospitals. And in fact when my partner was in sligo general with a broken arm recently the food seemed decent enough there with a moderate level of choice and a standard that was not wonderful but still better than you would get on one of those Sunday Carvery Hotel Bar things that people also complain a lot about.

I also sometimes wonder how much of the anecdote is mood biased. After all most people in hospital are not there for good reasons and are not in the best of humor and mood. So one wonders how much that subjectively influences their enjoyment of basic things like food.

A lot to learn I have, and no idea where to start Perhaps someone in the industry and in the know will happen along the thread and post some informative stuff.

I do think it varies widely from hospital to hospital, to be honest. The food he got in South Infirmary was the best, I would have said, but I still wouldn't have called it healthy.

He's been vegetarian for decades now, and I suspect him asking for veggie options seriously confused the good folks at CUH and the Mercy. There weren't any options on the pre-printed card where they ask you to tick your choices, so at CUH they asked him to just write down what he would like to have. So he wrote down things like veggie pizza one day, and beans on toast the next, and veggie curry on another. What he got was a slop of pasta with ketchup one day, 5 chips and a fried egg the next and the slices of bread and processed cheese I had already mentioned.

What I found funny was how they had no problems giving him deep-fried stuff, or tons of white carbs. But they wouldn't give people any salt, cause that's not healthy.

nozzferrahhtoo

^ I have to say that my opinion of CUH is pretty low at the best of times based off my own single anecdote. Which was that they called me in (eventually) to have my problem looked at......... and I got the follow up invitation to have the procedure done more than a DECADE later.

So I think I would be wary before using them as any comparison standard on any subject

Shenshen

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

^ I have to say that my opinion of CUH is pretty low at the best of times based off my own single anecdote. Which was that they called me in (eventually) to have my problem looked at......... and I got the follow up invitation to have the procedure done more than a DECADE later.

So I think I would be wary before using them as any comparison standard on any subject

:pac::pac::pac:

Ok, that IS bad. Personally, I can't fault them for my husband's treatment, they were not only very fast and responsive, but also very good in letting both of us know what was going on at each step, making sure we were feeling ok and safe as well as looking after him physically.

But the food... just no.

nozzferrahhtoo

I went to CIT myself for a time. If the CUH takes in the Chefs that study at CIT........... well lets just seen I have seen the standard of facilities and teaching and produce the students in CIT had in the food subjects.

And I can well believe that my decade long wait for a toe operation means I missed a bullet where their culinary offerings are concerned

iguot edgar

ThisRegard wrote: »

Those Americans might be better concerning themselves with the relatively poor food standards and what they allow the farm animals to consume over there.

Red M&Ms ftw, haha.

crossmolinalad

psinno wrote: »

Only a matter of time before liberals try to ban meat. And I'm not even joking.
Smoking bans are about harming other people not harming yourself.

No not jet
Alcohol ban comes first

nozzferrahhtoo

Hah I would like to see them try! I do not even drink any more, and intend never to drink again. But they will STILL have to pry alcohol out of my cold dead hands if they try to ban it

joefromireland

psinno wrote: »

Only a matter of time before liberals try to ban meat. And I'm not even joking.
Smoking bans are about harming other people not harming yourself.

Does that mean you should not feed processed meat to your kids until they are old enough to make an informed choice ?

wakka12

seamus wrote: »

At the launch of the new Children's Hospital recently, the finger food provided was wedges, cocktail sausages, mini spring rolls and chicken wings.

I'm not sure Irish institutions understand food well enough to make these changes. As a nation we've been incredibly slow to get rid of the old "any old food will do" mindset from when we were dirt poor.

Even our hipster notions are variations on greasy carbohydrates, meat and chocolate. Pulled pork, baps, and doughnuts.

What the ???
People eat those things because they like the taste and dont care about being healthy, not some weird poverty mindset