People love their bacon and deli meat is staple of many packed lunches in offices and schools, but recently the World Health Organization sent out a warning about eating too much processed meat.

Despite the announcement from the WHO that hot dogs, bacon, cold cuts, and other processed meats raise the risk of colon, stomach, and other cancers, several Toledo-area dietitians are calling for moderation in eating these foods rather than entirely excluding them from your diet.

“Don’t have bacon every day. Cut it back to a couple days a week,” said Nathan Drendel, a dietitian for ProMedica Wellness. “It’s not that you eat a piece of bacon and all of the sudden you will have colon cancer. These foods have to be eaten responsibly.”

A person would have to eat 50 grams of bacon, which is about two or three slices every day, for the food to have detrimental effects on their health, Mr. Drendel said.

It is also important to have a well-rounded healthful diet that includes all the food groups, and processed meats should not be the main part of anyone’s diet, said Kristi Mason, dietitian at the University of Toledo Medical Center, the former Medical College of Ohio.

“If you are going to eat processed meat, turkey or chicken is a better choice than bologna because there is less fat in the turkey,” Ms. Mason said.

The warning from the global health agency about the dangers of processed food did not come as a surprise to people in the health field. There have been many studies that have linked the consumption of processed meat and red meat to cancer.

The WHO’s announcement followed a new analysis of decades of research on the subject, prompting the most definitive statement ever issued by the group. The meat industry protested the classification, arguing that cancer isn’t caused by a specific food but also involves lifestyle and environmental factors.

Erin Hearl, clinical nutrition manager at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center, agreed that other factors do play a role in whether a person gets cancer.

“We know those processed meats can be cancer causing. It is still a smaller percentage of risk than those other environmental factors,” Ms. Hearl said. Air quality and whether a person smokes has more of a bearing on them getting cancer than eating processed or red meat, she added.

“Being obese is a bigger risk factor [for cancer[ than eating processed meats,” Mr. Drendel said.

The problem is that most of these processed meats are preserved with nitrates which convert to nitrosamines inside the body “and those are known cancer causers,” Mr. Drendel said.

He noted, however, that the food industry has been anticipating a backlash from consumers and has been moving away from using nitrates in some deli meat.

“They [food industry professionals] are trying to gear things back to as natural as possible, but we don’t have the data on the stuff they are using as a substitute [for nitrates]. It does not mean it’s good for us,” he said.

WHO researchers defined processed meat as anything transformed to improve its flavor or to preserve it, including sausages, canned meat, beef jerky, and anything smoked. They defined red meat as “all types of mammalian muscle meat, such as beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse, and goat.”

The warnings about red meat from the WHO were a little more muted than the directives on processed meats. The agency simply suggested there may be a link between eating too much red meat and developing stomach and colon cancer.

“When they said red meat is probably carcinogenic, to me that does not carry a lot of weight in the scientific community. I’m not sure why they decided to use that language,” Ms. Hearl said.

She does think people should eat red meat in moderation, which can mean different things to different people.

Ms. Hearl suggest people confine their red meat consumption to not more than two or three times per week.

If you eat a steak, your serving size should be no bigger than a deck of cards, Mr. Drendel said.

As for work or school lunches, Ms. Mason suggests people roast their own chicken or turkey breast and then use slices for sandwiches.

“What I encourage people to do is to eat a healthy balanced diet. The other important thing is physical activity. It’s all equally important. Just don’t over do it on anything and don’t freak out,” she said.

Contact Marlene Harris at: mtaylor@theblade.com, 419-724-6091, or on Twitter @marlenetaylor48.

First Published November 2, 2015, 5:00 a.m.