Is Smoked Meat Bad for You?

Smoked meat falls under processed meat. The World Health Organization defines processed meat as meat transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking or other processes to enhance flavor or improve preservation, and IARC classified processed meat as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1) in 2015, based on sufficient evidence that eating it causes colorectal cancer. IARC's experts concluded that each 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 percent.

Smoke raises a second question. The National Cancer Institute says polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) form when fat and juices from meat drip onto a fire or heated surface and the smoke adheres to the meat, that PAHs can also form when meats are smoked, and that heterocyclic amines (HCAs) form when amino acids, sugars and creatine react at high temperatures.

How much cooking method matters is less settled. The WHO says cooking at high temperatures or with food in direct contact with a flame produces more of these chemicals, but that the IARC working group did not have enough data to conclude whether the way meat is cooked affects cancer risk. The National Cancer Institute says population studies have not established a definitive link between HCA and PAH exposure from cooked meats and cancer in humans.