UK Pork Sales Plummet After WHO Report Links Bacon to Cancer

The powers that be say pork is dangerous — and people across the pond are listening. Since the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that processed meats like bacon and hot dogs cause cancer — sales have dropped significantly in the U.K., reports The Guardian.

“Supermarkets across the UK reported a £3m drop in sales of sausages and bacon in the two weeks after the report’s publication,” reports The Guardian. 

The numbers have continued to plummet.

“Three weeks after the WHO report, sales have not yet picked up,” The Guardian story says. “It emerged on Monday that the trend of low sales has continued this month, with IRI Retail Advantage data reporting that in the second week of November, prepacked bacon was down by 15.2% and prepacked sausages down by 13.5%, compared with 2014 sales.”

This is in keeping with the U.S. trend of declining meat consumption overall — 10% per capita since 2007. And red meat in particular has long since been seeing a drop: according to the USDA, U.S. per-capita beef consumption in 2015 is predicted to fall to 53.9 pounds per person, the lowest since the government started tracking the data in the 1970s.

Clearly, U.K. (and U.S.) residents are taking the scientific studies to heart, and moving away from these harmful, unnecessary foods. And more than just protecting our health, choosing plant-based foods also protect animals from the abuses routinely found inside slaughterhouses. 

With all the amazing meatless alternatives these days, who needs cancer-causing, cruelty-laden bacon?