SAUSAGES, bacon and burgers are as big a cancer threat as cigarettes, global health bosses are to rule.
The World Health Organisation is reportedly expected to rank processed meat alongside asbestos and arsenic as among the most cancer-causing substances.
Fresh red meat is also likely to be included in the “encyclopaedia of carcinogens”. The rulings, due on Monday, could hit the fast food sector and farming industry hard.
They come amid growing concern that meat is fuelling cancer in Britain, which costs more than 150,000 lives a year.
Links to bowel cancer, Britain’s second biggest cancer killer, are strong — with estimates that half of cases could be prevented by healthier lifestyles.
Department of Health scientists have already said that red and processed meat “probably” increase the chances of bowel cancer.
But WHO would be going further by claiming that processed meat causes the disease.
Its decision comes after scientists from ten nations, including the UK, met to examine the evidence.
The Government put out guidelines in 2011 recommending that those who eat more than 90g (3.2oz) cooked weight of red and processed meat should cut down to 70g (2.5oz) a day.
It advised people to have “occasional meat-free days” and to swap red and processed meat for chicken, fish or veggie options.