Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a disease that affects more than one million people every year. Inparticular in economically transitioning countries with progressing industrialization and urbanization,an increase in incidence has been observed, as such underlining the importance of environmentalfactors in the pathogeneses of CRC. One of these factors is the consumption of fresh and processedred meat.Although decennia ago, a link was discovered between the consumption of red and processedmeat and the development of CRC, there is still controversy surrounding this topic. The results ofepidemiologic studies are often inconsistent and recommendations made about the negative impact ofmeat consumption may have big consequences for the meat industry.An important step to make scientifically based recommendations about het consumption of redand processed meat, is the identification of the underlying mechanisms that may explain the harmfuleffects of meat. Several different hypotheses have been put forward and examined recently.