Enjoy food, die in your 70s

A post from January that got lost in the haze of fatherhood ...

"PROCESSED MEAT LINKED TO PANCREATIC CANCER", BBC News proclaims:



A NICE COOKED BREAKFAST WILL KILL YOU, oh yes:



The introductory text backs up the headline and picture:



You have to read to the third paragraph to get any sort of perspective:


But the prominent side-bar hammers home the healthist propaganda:


You'd have to be mad to eat meat, wouldn't you?  Especially red meat or processed meat.

Except that if you follow a link near the bottom of the article, you find this:



So "the chance of developing the rare cancer" is very low indeed: "it accounts for only three percent of cancers in the UK".

But there's an additional important point that's not mentioned in the main article at all: "the majority of cases occur in the over-70s".

Personally, I'd be quite happy to die in my 70s with my mind intact, after a lifetime of nice food, rather than in my 90s, with dementia, after a lifetime of tofu.