Meat — what the science says

In a nutshell

WHO classifies processed meat — sausages, bacon, ham — as a proven cause of colorectal cancer.¹
Every 50 g of processed meat a day is linked with an 18% higher risk of colorectal cancer and a 15% higher risk of diabetes.^2,3
These are observational studies with low certainty; absolute differences in risk are small.⁴

1What red and processed meat are

Red meat is the muscle meat of mammals: beef, veal, pork, lamb, horse or goat. Processed meat is meat that has been salted, cured, fermented, smoked or otherwise treated for flavour or preservation — hot dogs, ham, sausages, salami and canned meat.¹

Protein from meat and other sources is covered in the article Protein.

2Cancer

IARC (WHO) assessment Group 1 The International Agency for Research on Cancer classified processed meat in Group 1: there is convincing evidence that it causes colorectal cancer. Red meat is in Group 2A, “probably carcinogenic”. The group reflects how strong the evidence is, not how big the risk is.¹

Moderate evidence — observational studies +18% A summary of prospective studies: every 50 g of processed meat a day was linked with an 18% higher risk of colorectal cancer, and every 100 g of red meat with a 17% higher risk.²

3Heart and diabetes

Moderate evidence — observational studies +15% An analysis of 31 cohorts with almost 2 million adults from 20 countries: 50 g of processed meat a day was linked with a 15% higher risk of type 2 diabetes, 100 g of unprocessed red meat with a 10% higher risk and 100 g of poultry with an 8% higher risk. Replacing processed meat with unprocessed meat or poultry was linked with lower risk.³

Moderate evidence — observational studies +26% A summary of 43 observational studies with 4.5 million people: 100 g of unprocessed red meat a day was linked with an 11% higher risk of cardiovascular disease, and 50 g of processed meat with a 26% higher risk.⁵

4How certain is it

Weak evidence — 55 cohorts 3 servings a week A summary of 55 cohorts with more than 4 million people: eating 3 fewer servings of red or processed meat a week was linked with only a very small drop in the risk of death, heart disease and diabetes. Certainty was low because observational studies cannot fully remove bias.⁴

Most of the results come from observational studies, which do not prove cause and effect. But they agree that processed meat comes out worse than unprocessed meat and poultry.^2,3,5

What to take from this

Treat processed meat as an exception, not an everyday food.^1,2,3
If you eat meat, prefer unprocessed meat or poultry to processed meat.³
ForkRep shows the salt and saturated fat in each food — processed meat has a lot of both.

Sources

Written on 9 Oct 2026, based on studies available at that date. Newer research may change the conclusions.

World Health Organization (2026). Carcinogenicity of red and processed meat (questions and answers). who.int
Chan D. S. M. et al. (2011). Red and processed meat and colorectal cancer incidence: meta-analysis of prospective studies. PLoS One 6:e20456. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0020456
Li C. et al. (2024). Meat consumption and incident type 2 diabetes: an individual-participant federated meta-analysis of 1·97 million adults with 100 000 incident cases from 31 cohorts in 20 countries. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol 12:619–630. doi.org/10.1016/S2213-8587(24)00179-7
Zeraatkar D. et al. (2019). Red and processed meat consumption and risk for all-cause mortality and cardiometabolic outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies. Ann Intern Med 171:703–710. doi.org/10.7326/M19-0655
Shi W. et al. (2023). Red meat consumption, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur Heart J 44:2626–2635. doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehad336

This is general information and does not replace a doctor or dietitian. If you have heart or kidney disease or diabetes, talk to a doctor about your diet.