I was so excited when Fed Ex delivered this (along with my Philips Satinelle Ice epilator – which I’m still mustering up courage to use). We got this from HSBC’s airmile rewards program.
We figured an indoor grill would be safer to cook with since it doesn’t use charcoal (carcinogenic). Boy, we were so wrong!
The moment we got it, I quickly googled about grilled foods. And much to my surprise (and dismay), I read information about cancer-causing HCAs, or heterocyclic amines, which are created when meat, poultry, and fish are cooked at high temperatures.
I’ve been trying my best to cook the healthier way since cancer is in my genes, and I really don’t wanna get it…
Here are essential info that I found on the web, which are enlightening, but at the same time, very confusing! It basically leaves us with nothing much to eat except for vegetables and fruits!
I wanted to avoid oil as much as possible, so I’ve resorted to cooking without oil (something like grilling) with our Teflon pan.. but I found out that cooking that way only increases the HCA’s because of meat’s exposure to high heat and longer cooking time. Then maybe it’s safest to boil.. but, no..?
- Cooking with liquid—boiling, steaming, poaching, or stewing, for example—generates no HCAs because the temperature never tops the boiling point of water. Ditto for microwaving, so long as the food is not overcooked or dried out.
- Heterocyclic amines appear to form once the meat reaches a certain temperature regardless of whether it’s fried, sautéed, grilled, or boiled. (Hey I thought it was safe to boil? Ano ba talaga?)
- The other potential cancer causing agent found in cooked red meat is also a product of temperature. These are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that are formed primarily when meat is grilled. If you’ve observed those black, charred pieces on steaks after they come off of the grill, you’ve seen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
- Whenever fat drips on a flame, heating element, or hot coals, chemicals called PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) form. The PAHs waft up in the smoke and can land on the food. They can also form directly on food when it’s cooked to a crisp.
So, that leaves us with baking or roasting, which produces less HCA’s (depending again on temperature and cooking time)
- Grilling, barbecuing, broiling, and pan-frying are more likely to produce HCAs than baking or roasting, because they generate more heat.
- Never eat browned or overly cooked food. Burnt food forms harmful compounds. If by accident something is overcooked and browned, discard (ohh the yummy parts!). Avoid fried food and food sautéed in oil.
I read that marinating meat would lessen the production of HCA’s, and sausage and hotdog casings offered some sort of protection from HCA.. so I thought, maybe not-so-browned fried chicken’s a bit safer after all… once again, no… why, even the breading (carbohydrates) is carcinogenic!
- Add the carcinogenic potential from heated and overcooked oils (usually trans containing) delivered in doughnuts and fries with the powerful cancer inducing properties of carbohydrates cooked at high heat (acrylamide formation) and you have a great cancer potion.
Oh.. so hotodgs and sausage casings do offer some sort of protection from HCA’s?… Allelluia!!! …..NOT!!!
While HCAs do not form in grilled hotdogs, these highly processed meat products contain other carcinogens. Nitrates and N-nitroso compounds, preservatives found in processed foods such as hotdogs and sausages, have long been recognized as potent carcinogens.16
And… does this mean that McDonald’s burgers are the safer way to go? I am so confused now…
Fewer HCAs are found in fast-food burgers because they’re cooked so quickly. “They’re not exposed to the high heat over a long time that causes large amounts of HCAs,” says Knize. “There are some, but not what you get off the backyard barbecue.”
Ok, ok.. so processed meats are carcinogenic (spam, hotdogs, sausages, bacon, etc)… so what sandwiches can I prepare for my hubby’s breakfast at work? Ahhh, yes… my home-made cheese pimiento spread! It’s just made of cheese, butter, milk, and pimiento… what harm could it do? It must be the healthiest choice! What, NO???
Worst Seven Foods for Health and Longevity
- Butter
- Cheese
- Potato Chips and French Fries
- Doughnuts
- Salt
- Sausage, hot dogs
- Pickled, smoked or barbequed meat
Foods high in saturated fat and trans fat are consistently associated with high cancer rates. Cheese and butter typically contain over ten times as much saturated fat as fish and white meat chicken and turkey.
Sniff! I’m running out of options here… happy to see some helpful tips:
Tips for safer and healthier grilling:
- Cook smaller pieces: They cook more quickly and at lower temperatures.
- Choose leaner meat: Less fat should reduce flames and therefore smoke.
- Precook in the microwave: Doing so for two minutes may decrease heterocyclic amines by 90%, according to some research.
- Flip frequently: That way, neither side has time to absorb or lose too much heat.
- Before grilling or broiling, pre-cook meat or poultry in the microwave for two to five minutes and throw away the juice. “By discarding this juice, you can reduce HCAs by 90 percent,” says Lawrence Livermore’s Mark Knize.
Ohh… finally, a solution to avoid HCA’s! Just precook the meat in the microwave for 2 mins prior to grilling, or frying too maybe… Microwave is the answer! What… NO again???
- Microwaving prepared meats sufficiently to insure sanitary ingestion caused formation of d-Nitrosodienthanolamines, a well-known carcinogen.
- Ingestion of microwaved foods caused a higher percentage of cancerous cells within the blood serum [cytomas - cell tumors such as sarcoma]
- In a statistically high percentage of persons, microwaved foods caused stomach and intestinal cancerous growths, as well as a general degeneration of peripheral cellular tissues, with a gradual breakdown of the function of the digestive and excretive systems. If you must use a grill to prepare meat, choose low fat meat as they form fewer polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Trim off any black, charred areas before eating.
That’s it.. it’s bad to grill, to fry, to broil, why, it’s bad to cook anything nowadays! Ok, maybe, I can settle for good ol’, boring chicken breast and fish.. the leanest, safest food there is… or maybe not?
- Many people switch to chicken and fish, believing these to be healthier alternatives to beef. But that is not the case. On the grill, chicken produced more than 10 times the amount of the carcinogenic heterocyclic amines found in grilled beef. Furthermore, nearly all the HCAs detected were in the form of PhIP, which has specifically been implicated in breast cancer risk.12 This increased PhIP formation is likely due to the fact that chicken contains a large amount of phenylalanine, tyrosine, and isoeucine, amino acids that contribute to HCA formation. Fish also contains significant amounts of creatine, one of the other main ingredients for the formation of the carcinogens; not surprisingly, fish showed significant HCA formation as well.
The Five Worst Foods to Grill
| Food |
HCAs ng/100g* |
| Chicken breast, skinless, boneless, grilled, well done |
14,300 ng/100g2 |
| Steak, grilled, well done |
810 ng/100g3 |
| Pork, barbecued |
470 ng/100g4 |
| Salmon, grilled with skin |
166 ng/100g5 |
| Hamburger, grilled, well done |
130 ng/100g3 |
| |
|
|
*100g portion equals about 3.5 ounces grilled
|
Ok I get it! Red meat, poultry and fish still have carcinogenics in them.. I guess this means switching to fruits and veggies, and vegemeats… *sob*
- Consumers who want to reduce their cancer risk need not give up grilling. Reducing exposure to carcinogens is as simple as grilling veggie burgers instead of hamburger, or a thick portabello mushroom instead of a steak.
I’ve actually tried vegetarian sausages and vegemeat, but it’s not even half as good as the real thing.. Googling about all these have made me more confused… and I wonder now when I’d ever feel good using our new electric griller… If all the foods mentioned really do cause cancer, then how come earlier generations lived so long? I mean, they didn’t have studies like this yet.. and they lived up to 100 yrs old…
It’s past lunchtime now, and I’m hungry.. but I kinda feel bad frying the Chicken Parmigiana I prepared last night.. It’s chicken breast, it has breadcrumbs (carb) and parmesan cheese (saturated fat)… Tsk.Tsk. Tsk.
I don’t guarantee all these as facts coz I just got them on Google at the following sites:
http://www.cancerproject.org/media/news/fiveworstfoodsreport.php
http://www.curezone.com/foods/microwave_oven_risk.asp
https://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/cancer-risk-from-bbq-meat
http://www.cspinet.org/nah/6_98heat.htm
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myths-meat-grill-fry-or-broil-it.html
