I have to say, I don't think it's going to turn out to be any one thing, but it's probably a lot of somethings that are different for Gen X and Millennials vs Boomers.

Maybe it's related to eating processed food during some kind of critical window that occurs earlier in life (and processed food just didn't exist to the extent that it does now when my dad was growing up), but comparing the current diets of most boomers to most millennials, I have to say I know a lot of boomers that have continued eating like America did throughout the 90s, while a lot of millennials began making healthier food choices.

Like this seems to be at least one reason that the fast food industry is dying, especially now that it's not even cheap anymore.

I know a lot of boomers that have diets like my dad, and good lord that man ate bologna and other processed meats and foods non stop when I was growing up. He also smoked for several years. He's coming up on 73 and cancer free so far. Granted that's an n of 1, but it also seems there was a reason it was trendy for boomers to scoff at millennials for enjoying their avocado toast for breakfast instead of bacon and eggs.

For people over age 65 colorectal cancer is “continuing to decline rapidly by more than two percent a year”, Siegel said, whereas for younger people, it’s jumped from the fifth to the first leading cause of cancer death since the 1990s.

There seems to be little doubt it is hitting earlier for younger generations, but decreasing in the boomers that were feeding us the processed foods and also eating it over the same length of time we were growing up. Is it just because of screening?

It's also not like it's only hitting younger poor people. Even Kate Middleton was suffering from it a couple of years ago. Granted you never know how somebody eats, but given the relationship between income and food deserts, I would expect income level to be a stronger predictor.

Some populations are more at risk than others. Alaska Natives have the highest documented colorectal cancer mortality in the world, but Siegel said that, because the total number of Alaska Natives is so small, it’s hard to get funding to study why.

Also found this to be really interesting. There are very high poverty rates in Alaska, but junk foods and processed foods can actually be cost prohibitive since everything has to be imported. Also would expect less fast food consumption in Alaska for similar reasons.

There's a ton of sugar in canned beans, especially baked beans.

nitrates are in most cured meat, also celery salt as well if you are looking for nitrate free products, but it has celery salt, since celery acumulates nitrates naturally. some people can actually smell and taste the nitrates easily, its a very awful smell and the taste too.