I've often said that I could be a vegetarian. While I like meat, I just don't crave it. And the health and ethical reasons for going veg are tempting. Yet, knowing everything that I know, I still haven't made the leap. But I do cut down on my family's overall meat intake. For example, this week we only have three dinners that contain meat -- the rest of our dinners will be vegetarian. And, when I do purchase meat, I make sure it's lean.

John's Hopkins has some good tips on how to choose lean meats. Their picks for the leanest choices in each category are:

• Beef: Round steaks, roasts, top loin, top sirloin, chuck shoulder, arm roasts, ground round, and ground sirloin (at least 90% lean).
• Poultry. Chicken, turkey, and Cornish hen without skin.
• Pork. Tenderloin, center loin, pork loin, sausage with 1 gram of fat per ounce or less, and Canadian bacon.
• Lamb and Veal. Chop or roast.
• Sandwich meats. Lean turkey and lean ham.

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Okay, I know that millions eat lunch meat every single day. These products, which hang proudly in your local grocer, may taste good (from all the fat), but can reveal many health issues should you care to find out what is inside all that meat by researching all the ingredients.

In this photography layout, salami, pork sausage and more meat products are examined in great detail, using macrophotography. Warning: unless you are really, really interested in seeing what these products look like up-close, don't look at the pictures at this link. They may put you off lunch meat and sausage products forever.

But, these photos do tell the truth about what you eat when consuming these packaged meat products. Whole, free-range turkey is one of the few meats I eat, but after seeing these photos, it's hard to say whether I'll ever eat another piece of mass-produced lunch meat again. Will you?

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Deli meats causing problems in the lungs, of all places, seems like an unlikely truth. But according to recent research it does seem to be the case. When experts looked at the connection between a diet including cured meats such as deli meat, hot dogs, and bacon and the development of COPD later in life, they found what looks like a direct link: the more cured meats in a person's diet the higher the risk for COPD.

They are quick to point out, however, that this study by no means proves anything. In fact, they aren't even recommending that people stop eating cured meats, just that they consider cutting back a little.

I think we all already know that fresh is always better, and it's not just for fruits and vegetables.

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Get ready to add a new word to your health vocabulary. Bacteriophages are the new buzzword, and they've just been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as the first mix of bacteria-killing viruses to be termed a food additive. Sounds a little homeopathic, no?

According to virus manufacturer Intralytix Inc., the bacteriophages (Greek for "bacteria eater") are designed to be sprayed on ready-to-eat meat and poultry products including sliced luncheon meat -- a high-risk product because it is rarely heated or cooked after purchase. The "phages' " -- as they're nicknamed -- number-one job is to kill off strains of Listeria monocytogenes bacterium which cause listeriosis, a serious infection that primarily attacks pregnant women, newborns and adults with weakened immune systems. Of the 25,000 people stricken with listeriosis each year, 500 die of it.

I'm torn on this one, I really am. On the one hand, if modern science allows us to harness something like a virus for the greater good, I'm for it. In the article, both the FDA and consumer advocacy group the Center for Science in the Public Interest assure us that the most stringent guidelines have been followed and the phages wouldn't be used if otherwise.

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