Post-menopausal women: stay away from barbecued and smoked meat. Or at least increase your intake of fruit and vegetables.

Why?

Because a new study found that post-menopausal women who ate the most grilled, barbecued, and smoked red meat over a lifetime have a 47 percent higher risk of breast cancer. Those who additionally skimped on fruits and veggies had a 74 percent increase in risk.

Think about this:

However unintentional she says it has all been when it comes to the sultry and seductive persona that oozes sexuality through the television screen during her cooking shows, How to be a Domestic Goddess author Nigella Lawson has made a career out of making food sexy and the act of food consumption sensual. It is part of her not-always-so-subtle coy kitchen charm.

But if we believe her life to be as silky smooth and decadent as warm cream flowing over a morning bowl of juicy plump strawberries, and equally as charmed as she is charming, we would be mistaken. Yes, she is remarried to multi-millionaire, ad man and art dealer Charles Saatchi, but she is also the widow of journalist and writer John Diamond, who died of tongue cancer five years ago, leaving her suddenly mother and father to their two children, Cosima and Bruno.

A decade earlier, Lawson's mother had died of liver cancer. Her sister Thomasina died in her 30s of breast cancer. Cancer changes people. It is unavoidable, and the change can take many forms. For Nigella, who in the public eye has taken criticism for her ample figure and lack of concern for the fat content of food, has an almost unreasonable fear about thinness. After watching three family members waste away and die from cancer, she sees thin as a sign of illness.

"So even though I mind it when I put on weight I have a visual memory of seeing those people become skin and bone, and that gives me a slight reality check," explains Lawson. In watching her cooking show Nigella Bites, she came through as warm, down-to-earth, without a care for pretentious protocol or rules for the sake of rules. It is the way she cooks, and I get the feeling it is the way she lives. Cancer changes every person it touches and shapes perspectives about what is truly important in life. Being comfortable and enjoying yourself, including the food you eat, is a good recipe for life. A recipe Nigella seems to dish up with ease.

Nigella Lawson is Food Network's newest host in Nigella Feasts. On January 7, the theme of the show will be Feel Good Food featuring Smoked Salmon, Avocado and Pumpkin Seed Salad, a Vietnamese Prawn and Glass Noodle Salad, a colorful Antioxidant Fruit Salad, and a Syllabubbed Yogurt. Yum.

If at the smoky smell and sizzling sound of frying bacon you go mmmm....Bacon! then you might be dismayed by a review published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that suggests processed meats might be a cause of stomach cancer. But might is a big word in this specific report.

One, they don't have enough evidence to say for certain that bacon, sausage, hot dogs, salami, ham, and smoked or cured meat leads to an increased risk for stomach cancer. Two, the researchers did not take into account other studies of processed meats consumption that do reflect an increased risk of stomach cancer in those who also suffer from Helicobacter pylori infection. Early thought on this is that the infection in combination with processed meats consumption might be what increases stomach cancer risk. Definitive evidence is still not conclusive.

Consuming multiple servings of processed meats on a weekly basis is not a good idea, and most people know that. The news of this ambiguous review of previous studies still leaves the question wide open as to stomach cancer risks in relation to a diet of processed meats. Which begs the question: why did they release the findings of this report as significant news? It makes for a good news hook to attract more readers and television viewers, but I don't think it really tells us much in the way that we can take with us to the breakfast table.