Sydney - One of the world's top meat exporters - Australia Tuesday - ridiculed a landmark UN report linking sausages and ham to cancer, saying it was "a farce" to suggest they could be as lethal as cigarettes.
The World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) analysed 800 studies from around the world and found that processed meats such as sausages, ham, and hot dogs cause bowel cancer, and red meat "probably" does too.
It placed processed meat into its Group 1 category of carcinogens. Other substances in the group include alcohol, asbestos and tobacco.
"No, it shouldn't be compared to cigarettes and obviously that makes the whole thing a farce - comparing sausages to cigarettes," Australia's Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce told national radio.
"I don't think that we should get too excited that if you have a sausage you're going to die of bowel cancer, because you're not. You just don't want to live on sausages."
Heading back to a cave
Joyce added that "the biggest thing is to make sure you get a balanced diet" as it was impossible for humans to avoid every cancer causing toxin in modern day life.
"If you got everything that the World Health Organisation said was carcinogenic and took it out of your daily requirements, well you are kind of heading back to a cave," he said.
"If you're going to avoid everything that has any correlation with cancer whatsoever - don't walk outside, don't walk down the streets in Sydney, there's going to be very little in life that you do in the end."
The Australian meat industry's research and development corporation, Meat and Livestock Australia, said "promoting red meat as part of a healthy, balanced diet is important".
The IARC evaluation revealed "strong mechanistic evidence supporting a carcinogenic effect" for red meat consumption - mainly for cancer of the colon and rectum, but also the pancreas and prostate, said the agency based in Lyon, France.
As for processed meat, including hot dogs, sausages, corned beef, dried meat like biltong, canned meat or meat-based sauces, there was "sufficient evidence in humans that the consumption of processed meat causes colorectal cancer".