EDITORIAL - If life is good, why is food so bad?

The World Health Organization has thrown its weight behind what health experts have been saying for years -- that processed meat like bacon, ham, sausages can cause cancer. How the development will be taken by a world that is increasingly dependent on food that can be easily and quickly prepared remains to be seen. But if how the same world reacted to similar warnings in the past is any indication, the WHO warnings will also be largely ignored.

Ironically, only the small portion of the global population who can actually afford to combat dread diseases will likely heed the warnings. The vast majority who must toil hard and whose ability to do so depends greatly on spending less time for preparing proper meals will most likely just take chances with the warnings. In striking a balance between life and earning a living, the fatalistic tendency somehow always seems to prevail.

It is instructive that the WHO warnings made such a big splash in the news. It is because the subject of the warnings involve foods that are on almost everyone's table, except perhaps for those who have the means and the luxury to be truly choosy and finicky in their diets. But for the working class global population processed meat has become staple food.

In fact, the WHO warning actually pales in comparison to the amount of advertising involving processed meats. At least in the Philippines, hotdogs make up one of the most ubiquitous commercials there is on television. Processed meat advertising makes up such a huge chunk of media revenues that one can almost feel the consternation in all the giant boardrooms of global network businesses in the aftermath of the WHO dampener.

One can also imagine the great domestic turmoils the WHO announcement will cause in homes where there are children. Children are among the biggest consumers of the products the WHO has just cited as dangerous and unhealthy. To be sure, adults can quickly make adjustments. It is the children who will ultimately prove to be problematic.

Aside from the problems with the processed meat itself, the greater problem will involve how to wean children away from a meal that has become one of the most popular in the world. There is probably no home in the world that has not a child that does not love, at the very least, hotdog. Take that hotdog away and there could be domestic chaos. In a worse case scenario, there could proceed psychological situations that will only add to the original problem.

Clearly the WHO announcement has created a crisis of sorts in many fronts. To be sure, the giant manufacturers of the targeted products must be bristling in anger and struggling to find ways to cope with the fallout. Underneath all of this, however, is that trusted old adage that might find good use dusted out from its slumber -- nothing is really ever good or bad in its entirety. We are not the experts on food safety and health. But life is always best lived with moderation.