Ilya, Anna and several others have speculated on burned meat and the fact
that certain researchers have concluded that a diet rich in meat causes
colon cancer.  I have several thoughts on this.

1)  I can bet my bottom dollar that the people in America who consume a lot
of meat (whatever that means) and contract colon cancer did not do so eat a
diet of meat, vegetables, fruits, and nuts.

2)  I have heard countless vegetarians say that Americans eat a meat-based
diet, implying that meat makes up the foundation or largest part of the
diet.  This is laughable to me.  I have yet to see shoppers in grocery
stores buying mostly meat.  When I am in a supermarket, I never see anyone
buying loads of meat; they always have far more pop, canned veggies, canned
fruits, sauces, syrups, cookies, cakes, pies, candies, ice cream etc.
Surveys show that sugar, cereal products and altered fats make up the bulk
or base of they typical Americans diet.  So, the mythical meat based diet is
just that.

3)  It is possible that meat is merely a marker for certain others habits
than those with cancer (namely consumption of a high starch, high sugar diet
laced with wrecked fats).  In America, those who eat a lot of meat (again
this term doesn't mean much, but implies a lot) also consume a lot of empty
starch, sugar, preservatives, additives, wrecked fats/oils, and a host of
other foodstuffs that are not nutritious.  Likewise, in America, those who
are health conscious, and eat little red meat, are often the same people who
abandon smoking drinking, take less coffee, eat more fresh vegetable and
fruit.  So this can confuse things for researchers who don't look at all of
these details/variables.

One could just as easily say that owning many pairs of shoes (more than
four?  more than six?) causes colon cancer, since it just so  happens that
Americand typically own more shoes per capita than those folks in
non-industrialized nations who have lower rates of colon cancer.  One could
come up with a correlation between televison watching and cancers of all
sorts as well.  My point:  Correlation does not equal causation.

Rachel Matesz