As we pulled out of the hospital car park, my husband and I were in a dazed silence. I know the date. I’ll never forget it: November 7, 2019. Everything in my life until that point would now be known as ‘BBC’ – Before Bowel Cancer.

A few minutes earlier, I’d leaned forward and put my head in my hands as a neatly suited bowel surgeon confirmed my worst fears.

Following the discovery of a large mass in my colon a few days before, a biopsy had revealed it was indeed cancerous. But there was more devastating news – the results of a CT scan showed the cancer had spread to my liver.

‘I’m afraid that means it’s officially stage-four bowel cancer. But… um, don’t worry, I’m pretty sure it’s all treatable,’ he told us, perhaps in a kind attempt to make the bad news good for the weekend. I would find out later that some stage-four patients do beat the odds and can even be cured. But in that moment I thought I might not have long to live.

I headed into a destabilising spin. Christmas was just weeks away. Will it be my last? What about the children? The only thought that held still in that moment of internal chaos was that I was desperate to get on to Google.

‘What are the causes of bowel cancer?’ I typed into my phone as we drove towards our home in Melbourne, where we would have to break the news of my diagnosis to our children, then aged just nine and 11.

There were several risk factors and causes, it seemed. I went through them one by one. Was I over 50? No. Was I obese? A few extra kilos like many mums, yes, but obese? No. Did I smoke? Never.

Did I have a close relative with bowel cancer or a genetic risk? No. Did I have a diet low in fibre and high in ultra-processed foods? Not at all – oats, fruit, legumes and vegetables were part of my daily regime.

Luice Morris-Marr in hospital after being diagnosed with bowel cancer

Was I active? Definitely. Was I a regular drinker? One or two glasses of pinot noir on a Friday.

This initial search simply left me confused. Why me? Why now? At 44 years old?

‘What the hell!’ I blurted out, breaking the silence in the car.

Lost in my own world, I dug deeper into other possible links. To my horror, I found that, according to many studies, if you regularly eat red and processed meats – such as bacon, frankfurters or salami – you are risking your health and your life.

There is a strong bowel cancer link, and other suspected health impacts, with processed meats. You may have read the headlines over the years and already know this. But perhaps you are like I was at the time – not fully aware of the risks, especially being so young.

As I absorbed this information, I looked back over my life. I’m not really a huge consumer of processed meats, I said to myself, over and over. I’d never liked the look of those plastic packets of ham and usually preferred chicken, cheese or salmon. But then I really started to think about it more deeply.

I thought about the occasions I’d had a side of bacon at brunch. How, when I made veggie soup, I’d often fry up a few pieces of bacon to add to it.

As an expat homesick for Hampshire, I thought about how I’d loved carving the little diamond patterns into the mammoth leg of ham I cooked every Christmas Eve. Gosh, I always loved slices of that ham in the days that followed. Then I thought back to all those trips to the supermarket and how I could be lured in by grilled sausages, packed into slices of white bread.

Was it possible, just maybe, that eating these processed meats in my otherwise healthy diet may have caused my bowel cancer?

I would never know for sure of course, but the idea I may have brought the pain and suffering on myself, let alone my family, made it even harder.

Finding another possible reason outside my control would have been far easier. I began poring over studies and reports, uncovering facts that I realised the meat industry would much rather you didn’t know. What I found made me angry but also determined, as a journalist, to write a book to shine a light on the murky corners of the processed meat industry.

Luice with her husband and children, who were nine and 11 when she had to break the news

For instance, an extraordinary study of nearly half a million adults (see panel below) concluded that those ‘with a high consumption of processed meat are at increased risk of early death, in particular due to cardiovascular diseases but also to cancer’.

This line made me gasp. But it wasn’t the only study that left its mark. The World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2015 classed processed meats in the same cancer-risk bracket as tobacco and asbestos. It also stated that 50g of processed meat eaten each day increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 per cent. That’s just one sausage, two slices of ham or a couple of rashers of bacon.

These processed meats are thought to be responsible for 13 per cent of the 44,000 new bowel cancer cases in Britain every year, according to Cancer Research UK.

The disease is also on the rise in the UK among young people – with rates for those aged 25-to-49 increasing by more than 50 per cent since the early 90s. Yet a bacon sandwich remains one of the nation’s favourite snacks.

Preservative used in bacon… and presticides

For thousands of years, salt was used to cure meat. Today, it’s synthetic nitro-preservatives, most commonly sodium nitrite, which help to massively extend a product’s shelf life, reduce food poisoning risks and give the meat its pink colour.

They are cheap and effective. Look at the best-before dates on bacon or salami, for example – you can have up to eight weeks before you need to bin it. But the health impact of consuming them is largely overlooked.

Sodium nitrite is a crystalline powder that resembles kitchen salt. It has no odour, and dissolves in water. It can be added to a processed meat mix in powdered form, injected into meat, or added to water to form a brine – ‘pickle’ as it’s known in the industry.

As well as a food preservative, I discovered, to my horror, that it is added to antifreeze for cars, and used to prevent pipes and tanks from corroding. It’s also an ingredient in dyes, pesticides and pharmaceuticals.

Studies show that in their pure form nitro-preservatives are not carcinogenic – having the potential to cause cancer.

But under certain conditions they give off chemicals, in particular nitric oxide, that react with meat and produce carcinogenic compounds. Scientists call these N-nitroso compounds, and they include nitrosamines.

After we digest processed meat, nitrosamines are broken down by the liver and can damage DNA, leading to mutations causing cancer.

And they can damage cells in the bowel.

Yet food manufacturers find it hard to let go of nitro-preservatives. Without them, processed meats would turn brown, making them less appealing.

Meat would have to be sold within hours, not sit on shelves or be moved long distances.

Get nitrate-ree meat – if you can find it

After my diagnosis, I underwent a seemingly endless series of arduous treatments, including chemotherapy, four surgeries and radiation. But every few months scans showed the cancer slowly creeping back.

By early 2024, as my options were running out, I was offered a liver transplant – a relatively new treatment for advanced bowel cancer patients.

I knew it was a huge risk but I had to take the chance.

I was told to be ready for a call from the hospital that could come at any time of the day. So I waited – for six long months.

Then, on a warm, beautiful evening last year, the call finally came. A precious liver had been flown by private jet from another state to my hospital. As a family grieved, death was soon to be turned into life.

Less than eight hours later, I had to let go of my husband’s hand as I was wheeled into surgery. When they woke me I was still on a ventilation machine, but doctors said the nine-hour operation had been a success.

My new liver was functioning well and I was now free of cancer. I placed my hands over my sealed wound and silently said ‘thank you’ to my donor and their family.

The initial recovery was brutal and the following months were dominated by hospital admissions for complications and infections.

Despite some on-going challenges, I’m incredibly grateful to be alive and cancer-free.

Not only does Lucie not eat processed meat any more, neither do her husband and children

It goes without saying that I no longer eat processed meat. The smell and even the sight of it makes me feel physically unwell because I associate it with the pain and suffering of cancer.

But my children and husband no longer consume it either.

At first, there were loud complaints that they wanted their favourite pepperoni pizza. But once I explained that pepperoni increases the risk of cancer, their protests quickly stopped.

It’s great to see more and more nitrite-free products – such as Finnebrogue Naked Bacon in the UK – are becoming available in supermarkets, but they still represent a minuscule fraction of the market.

Ultimately we cannot leave it to food companies to tackle this problem – it’s not in their financial interests to remove nitrites. Instead, it’s up to the Government to enforce change, bring in warning labels and run widespread health campaigns

But consumers can also help by reducing their consumption and also showing their preference for chemical-free meat. Only then will these products become the norm – just as free-range eggs eventually became the standard in supermarkets.

I’m lucky to be alive, but every year thousands of bowel cancer patients are dying – in many of these cases, their disease was brought on by processed meat. The number of these deaths is unacceptable – and it’s time we took a stand.

This is an edited extract from Processed: How the Processed Meat Industry Is Killing Us With The Food We Love, by Lucie Morris-Marr, is out on Wednesday (Icon Books), priced £15.99.