People should steer away from eating processed meats every day, instead opting for a balanced diet of fresh red meat and vegetables, Canberra butchers say.
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The comments come after a United States study of more than 120,000 people found eating processed red meat daily could increase a person's risk of dying young by up to 20 per cent.
Yarralumla Meats butcher Peter Martel, with 26 years of experience in Canberra and the region, said no one could live on processed meat, such as hot dogs, bacon, ham and salami, because of their ingredients, such as saturated fat, preservatives and additives.
''Processed meat is more of a treat,'' Mr Martel said.
But he believed people needed to eat fresh red meat about two to three times a week, as part of a balanced diet.
The research by Harvard University experts also revealed that eating red meat increased the risk of heart disease and cancer, and found that substituting fish and poultry could lower early death risk.
''I don't agree with that, people should eat fresh red meat, as long as it's a balance between that and vegetables,'' Mr Martel said.
''This won't turn people off buying meats - people have been going on about this for years.''
Senior author of the study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Frank Hu, said the study provided clear evidence that regular consumption of red meat, especially processed meat, contributed to premature death.
Researchers collected their data from a study of 37,698 men who were followed for 22 years and 83,644 women over 28 years.
Subjects answered surveys about their eating habits every four years.
Those who ate a card-deck-sized serving of unprocessed red meat each day, on average, had a 13 per cent higher risk of dying than those who did not eat red meat as frequently.
And if the red meat was processed the risked jumped to 20 per cent.
The study's authors said between 7 and 9 per cent of all deaths in the study ''could be prevented if all the participants consumed fewer than 0.5 servings per day of total red meat''.
Yarralumla Meats owner Ugur Kocak said people needed to shop at local butchers where they could ask what meat they were getting and where it was from, rather than at Coles and Woolworths, where meats were pre-packed.
''People don't know where it's come from there,'' Mr Kocak said.
''Whereas you go to a local butcher, where the supplier is already known, and the butcher cuts the meat in front of you - it's a healthier way of eating meat.'' with Ilya Gridneff
