On the dangers of BBQ

(PHOTO: RASHMI SINHA/NCI/FOOD AND CHEMICAL TOXICOLOGY)

So I recently wrote a story for the LA Times on the dangers of barbecue. In a nutshell: reserachers find that chemicals form during hot cooking (grilling) of meaty foods, and in barbecue smoke that cause cancer and bad stuff, but you have to eat a lot of well done meat to see the effects. But certain genetic variance in the speed of certain metabolism enzymes can seriously up the risk. Still you probably need to to eat well or very-well done meat on a regular basis to see the increase in breast, prostate, stomach and colorectal cancer.

But what IS well done? One thing I didn’t mention in the article was the database of carcinogens (heterocyclic amines or HAs) that has been developed by Rashmi Sinha and her colleauges at the National Cancer Institute. Sinha has spent a large part of the last decade cooking burgres, steaks, pork cutlets, chicken breasts, whole chicken, hot dogs and sausages to different degrees of doneness and then measuring the levels of certain HAs. Very well done barbecued chicken breasts are the worst, if memory serves.

Anyways.

To compliment the database Sinha developed a series of flash cards that showed the inside and outside colour of cooked meats so that they could get a better idea of HA consumption from people answering survey questions. With every survey came the cards and so the science was improved.

So take a look at the above examples. And then make sure you always answer "1" until the end of time.