@VeryHappy - No problem finding turkeys in my area year round, but they will be frozen.
Turkeys are cheap at the holidays because they are used as a loss leader by the stores, a way to get you into their store where you’ll fill up your shopping cart full of other groceries. It’s a good time to pick up several which will keep in the freezer for awhile. Same for ham around Easter but I guess we shouldn’t be eating that anymore. 
I wouldn’t mind a frozen turkey but I can’t even find that at my local stores. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough – I’ll keep searching.
I think Trader Joe’s has fresh turkey breast year round. At least in my neck of the woods.
I’ve always felt that unprocessed, fresh foods are the healthiest way to go. But even if we eliminate them altogether, we are still exposed to things in the air, the ground, the water, and the random things in the environment. ( Think of the warnings about cash register receipts.) Most of the carcinogens we’re exposed to are beyond our control.
I do think diet of fresh foods can help to fight off disease, so I try, but it’s a matter of degree. If it causes a lot of stress and unhappiness to give up your Sunday bacon, I would say it’s not worth it.
You are right about whole turkeys and fresh turkey breast; they can be hard to find from February to October. Do you have a specialty butcher or meat purveyor in your area? On the other hand, turkey wings and drumsticks seem to be available year round in my area. I read once that a good number of American turkeys are shipped abroad in “the off season.”
“Red meat refers to all types of mammalian muscle meat, such as beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse,
and goat.”
I think I can give up eating horse. Do you think Venison would be a better choice?
http://www.theonion.com/article/report-red-meat-linked-contentedly-patting-belly-51739
“WASHINGTON—Saying the effects were almost immediate and largely unavoidable, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture released a report Tuesday linking red meat to contentedly patting one’s belly. “Our data show a strong, statistically significant correlation between consuming servings of red meat and pushing back one’s chair, letting out a satisfied sigh, and gently patting or rubbing one’s abdomen with either one or both hands,” said lead researcher Elliott Hyde, who explained that eating cuts of beef, pork, or lamb was also found to cause acute sereneness and glazing-over of the eyes. “Subjects who ate steaks, burgers, roasts, or chops were also 80 percent more susceptible than non-meat-eaters to groaning happily at audible volumes, and were particularly at risk of uttering vocalizations that contained the phrases ‘Oh, yeah,’ ‘Mmm,’ and ‘That was good.’” The report further revealed that the consumption of processed meats, such as bacon and sausage, was linked to a 100 percent chance of seconds.”
@Veryhappy , we seem to have turkeys , at least frozen ones most of the time. Smaller ones, mind you than what we see during the holidays. I am hearing that turkeys will be pricey this season , due to the bird flu that forced farmers to kill a lot of their livestock …I hope not !
I have no idea what I am actually going to feed the men in my house now. They are huge meat eaters - at least for dinner. I too thought pork was healthier - more akin to chicken - and did a pork tenderloin once a week for dinner. Now I m supposing that is no good either?
@lje62 - I’m sorry to report that I’ve heard that same thing. And the person I heard it from is an investigator with the USDA here in LA so unfortunately I think there’s some truth to it. Ugh.
I have the same problem. H loves pork tenderloin and I have already taken away his hot dogs. He’s going to rebel if I take away pork too…
I personally am not going to change what we eat based on this report . I believe in moderation and not too fearful that eating meat , including occasional bacon and perhaps even ((( gasp ))) a hot dog every now and then.
I have little faith in any government or even multi-government organization to supply non-biased advice when there are far more threatening circumstances we should worry about .
My family in Sweden eats a steady diet of pork products as a dietary staple, eat hot dogs too…85 yrs of that and still kicking
Another sensationalistic, “click-bait” headline
I’ve got PLENTY of extended family members w terrible diets, who lived into their 80’s. I’m over it.
Lets not forget that study from a few years ago that found cancer causing agents in anything starchy and baked. Goodbye bread and baked potatoes! This recent study found the results were worse when the meat was cooked. Should we eat raw potatoes and meat? It seems to me that that would kill you even sooner!
Just cook it with garlic, wash it down with red wine, and don’t worry.
Cheese and crackers; peanut butter and crackers; pb and jelly sandwiches; hummus, pita bread/crackers… All of these with fruit or cut up veggies.
I make this thing I call “chickpea salad” that’s basically like chicken salad (I think) but made with smashed chickpeas instead of shredded chicken. Smash the chickpeas (drained and rinsed from the can - 2 cans) with potato masher. Add diced celery, carrot, walnuts, some dried or fresh parsley, salt and pepper, some mayo and a dash of dijon mustard. My kid has actually converted other kids temporarily to vegetarianism with this (temporary because their parents freaked out and made them eat ham, or something like that, according to my daughter. Oh well, can’t brainwash them all…
)
I actually make it vegan and use vegan mayo, but you can use regular mayo.
And I’m just going to say this once - please consider replacing the lunch meats made with beef or pork with things like pb, hummus, etc. and limit the chicken and turkey.
Not because the chicken and turkey are unhealthy, but because chickens and turkeys are already raised in such horrific ways, then killed en masse at mind-boggling rates, in order to keep up with the demand of those seeking a leaner, healthier meat than red meat. This is just going to make that worse.
As soon as they released this info about the cancer, I just thought, Wow, the chickens and turkeys and really going to suffer even more, now.
Ok, that’s all, thanks for letting me say that, and that’s all I want to say about it.
Btw, if your kids aren’t allergic to gluten, some of the fake meats are of a very similar taste and texture - but i personally would limit gluten too, for children, like once a week or so. Even if not sensitive to it, it can be hard on young tummies, I think.
Moderation has ALWAYS been the key and recommendation. This really isn’t news–my mom was telling me this when she went back to college for her masters–in the 1970s! You can buy a rotiserie chicken from Costco and cut it up and make sandwiches, chicken ceasear salad and a hot of other dishes. If you are worried about it spoiling, put in a blue-ice pack or a frozen juice box. PBJ is a fine option–H took it for lunch for decades!
My folks are very long-lived and dad eating every bad thing he can with mom trying to eat a healthy diet hasn’t changed things much for them. Neither has a trace of cancer, nor many other physical ailments.
I completely understand what you’re saying about moderation, and also agree that stressing out over the issue is counterproductive.
But I’m wondering if this report will have a similar impact to when the Surgeon General (or wherever he got his info from) definitively linked smoking to lung cancer in the 60s. Prior to that time my grandparents assured me that people “knew” smoking wasn’t the greatest for your health (they had the persistent coughs to prove it), but most people didn’t want to give up their cigarettes. Then, BAM, came the surgeon general’s report, and things began an inevitable course of change, to the point now that it’s the rare person who smokes.
Will this study have the same sort of effect? Time will tell.
I’m not looking to completely give up on beef/pork/lunch meat, but I am looking to cut back. I particularly like the suggestion of roasting a chicken on Sunday and using the meat for sandwiches during the week. Plus the non-meat options.
Probably not the same sort of effect, because the difference between the two risks are so vast.
Let me just point out that the fact that somebody ate bacon every day and lived to be 100 does not constitute evidence one way or the other on whether eating bacon makes it more likely for an average person to get cancer. There are old smokers, motorcyclists, and even skydivers.
As others have said, this study is just more confirmation of something we already knew, but just wish wasn’t true.
The difference to me as a parent is that I now feel compelled to do something about it, since I’m the one who cooks the dinners and packs the lunches. There have been some great suggestions on this thread on different options to try.
As I said, I’m not going to go “cold turkey” on this (haha) but I can cut back on the beef/pork and greatly reduce if not eliminate the lunch meats.
An occasional summer cookout will still be part of our menu! (red meat, hotdogs, flavorful carcinogen toppings…)
I think living kills you! Until someone convinces me that eating a specific diet will assure that I live to 100 and then die a painless death I think I’ll continue to enjoy the foods I enjoy in moderation. The danger is how this changes people’s behavior.
We were told that butter was bad for us 50 years ago and it gave us margarine. We were told to eliminate fats from our diet and ended up with diets too heavy in carbs and an epidemic of type 2 diabetes. Our solutions to eliminating a “bad” food from our diet seemingly ends up being worse for us than the original food.
I applaud those who are vegetarians, however, by nature we are omnivores. Many will quit eating beef, pork, lamb etc. in response to this study and eat only poultry or fish. We already know we shouldn’t eat farm raised fish and if we all eat fresh caught we’ll deplete the supply, and I’m sure if we study poultry enough that too will be dangerous for us. Others will try and find some substitute for meat that tastes something like it but will have to have artificial flavors for us to sort of recognize it. Those chemicals we will discover will likely cause new undiscovered maladies. I’ll head home now to ironically eat my tex mex butternut squash crockpot chili…cause I like it:)