Vernon Stuttard (LT, June 10) holds such strong views about the bacon buttie, one must question his motives.

To quote such mistruths as meat products being the cause of bowel cancer, breast cancer, heart disease and type II diabetes does nothing to support the cause of the animal welfare movement, if that is indeed the hidden meaning of his letter.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of meat-eating, the assertion that 90% of cancers and heart disease are solely due to lifestyle factors is deeply insulting to the perfectly normal patients of mine whose healthy lifestyles have, in Mr Stuttard’s opinion, ‘caused’ their illness.

I see patients with the healthiest lifestyles struck down, through no fault of their own, by serious illnesses which Mr Stuttard believes they could have prevented by avoiding the likes of bacon sandwiches in their diet.

I hope the Pendleside walkers enjoyed their bacon butties without guilt.

We do not live longer from depriving ourselves of life’s simple pleasures. It just feels that way.

Dr Robert P Grayson, Gt Harwood Medical Group.