Who will adhere to WHO warning equating red meats with tobacco

Food shows may be the first to feel the full weight of official opprobrium hitherto reserved for better known carcinogenic agents after the recent WHO warning equating red meats and processed cold cuts with tobacco, alcohol and asbestos. If health and safety departments swing into action, commercials featuring them could then go off the air, films that have actors eating them may have to carry taglines warning consumers or they may be relegated to surrogate advertising as cigarette and liquor brands are in India.

And packaging of fresh and processed meats may be mandatorily plastered with dire warnings and gruesome photographs of the result of excessive hogging of BLTs and croque monsieurs. While Americans will probably not forgo their hot dogs without a bunfight, the WHO’s prognostications on processed meats also come at the worst possible time for Europe.

Excising charcuterie from their national menus by international diktat could strike many natives as yet another assault on their already beleaguered national identities. After all, what is Germany without bratwurst, Spain without chorizo and jamón, France without saucisson and boudin, and Britain without bangers and gammon? It is not surprising Italians have refused to part with their prosciutto and have dismissed WHO’s findings as “meaningless alarmism”.