Despite the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recent warnings that bacon and ham may cause cancer, Australian pork prices are at an all-time high.
Female baconer pigs sold for more than $4 per kilogram live weight at South Australia’s Dublin pig sale in early November, which saw farmers taking home 45 cents per kilogram more than late October, when the WHO cancer warning was released.
Pig market reporter Peter Brechin told ABC Rural it was the highest price for bacon pigs he could find in Australia’s history. He said increased demand could be driven by more people moving away from more expensive meats such as beef.
In what was said to be a potentially heavy blow for the global meat industry, it seems Sydneysiders aren’t taking the World Health Organisation’s warning too seriously.
Sydney local Paul Cheshire said the warning had not stopped him purchasing cured meats as “apparently everything gives you cancer”.
“It seems there is a new warning each week that things we use or consume each day can cause cancer, so no it’s not going to stop me buying bacon,” he told The Newsroom.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said in a statement: “Each 50-gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 per cent.”
The IRAC grouped consuming processed meat in the same category as tobacco smoke and asbestos. – Charmaine Perry
Top photo of pigs from Jon Rowley’s Flickr Photostream
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