The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer recently disclosed that processed meat and all red meat causes cancer. Red meat is defined as all the types of mammalian muscle meat such as beef, veal, pork, lamb and horse. “People should eat a more plant based diet,” said junior Curtis Arduni. “Meat is not something that people should consume every day.”   This announcement caused the Internet to light up like wildfire with expressions of shock. The IARC found that processed meats can potentially be placed in the same category as smoking. However, processed meats and smoking are not equally as risky but they have both been found to contain high carcinogenic levels, thus contributing to cancer. Both prostate and pancreatic cancer seems to be the two main types caused by red meat.  “In my opinion, the risk seems too little to really have any effect,” says senior Heather Clapp. “I think that everything is okay in moderation,” she continued.   Researchers conducted various experiments on red meat consumption and found that eating slightly less than two ounces of red meat a day increases colorectal cancer by 17 percent for a 50-year-old man has a .68 percent chance of contracting colorectal cancer and if that same man consumes a decent amount of red meat each day, his risk rises to .80 percent.  The IARC explicitly states that there is no safe threshold of consuming processed meats like bacon but no one should consume more than 18 ounces of red meat per week. Even though the IARC has supplied the public with this information, people are going to do whatever they want, to eat large quantities or not, in the long run.