Acrylamide - Does This Change your Cooking/Baking/Eating?

Forums: Health, Food And Drink, Food, Acrylamide
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Acrylamide - a chemical used to make polyacrylamide products such as glues, paper and cosmetics is already proven to cause cancer in animals, although whether the same applies to humans is not yet known for definite.

Acrylamide is to be found, when starchy foods are fried, roasted or baked at high temperatures.

Along with the 32 products in Germany initially found to contain Acrylamide, a further 73 products have been determined to also contain the substance.

Following the initial Swedish findings in April, tests in Britain, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA and Canada confirmed that foods high in starch and fried, roasted or baked at high temperatures contained the plastic substance.

Some of the classic culprits are French fries, potato chips and crackers. But new results show that popcorn, pretzel sticks, even roasted onions, cornflakes, crisp bread, coffee powder and German Christmas baked specialities, "Spekulatius" [traditional spicy Christmas cookie] and "Lebkucken" [gingerbread] also contain Acrylamide.

"The motto is: don't burn it", German consumer minister, Renate Künast said on German television.

Are you changing your habits as well? (Which doesn't implicate that Germans generally and I especially usually burn our/my cooking/baking Smile

! Only sometimes :wink: )

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And I thought acrylamide was a fabric...

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I admit to being somewhat reckless, but I have always refused to react to this type of information. I won't give up something I like on such weak and inconclusive data. I haven't seen an iodine bottle in a long time, but it use to have a poison label which is of course warranted, but a small amount of iodine is also a dietary requirement. I remember when cyclamates were unnecessarily taken off the market to the glee of "sweet and low" manufacturers. It was eventually found to be safe. I don't know what the current advice is, but I recall being told not to eat anything charred, since charred items were carcinogenic. I prefer rare roast beef, but I also like the charred outside slice and always select it. I also enjoy chewing on the charred bones of a succulent loin lamb chop. I understand how some people want to cut risk factors to an absolute minimum. I, however, am not one of them.

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Flyboy- I don't know what is happening now, but I had gone to Canada when cyclamates had just been banned in the US. To my utter amazement, I was told that saccharin had been banned in Canada, and that cyclamates were being used there. Go figure?

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What I understood in this whole acrylamide thing is that food has been containing it ever since mankind started to cook the food. Well, we are still here - what does that tell me? I will not change my eating habits, that's for sure. I believe in a balanced diet that my body agrees with. BTW, last night I learned on TV that even water contains acrylamide and that you will absorb more of it by taking a shower than by drinking water.

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Okay, you might be right, urs.

But: there have been, e.g., quite a lot of people of people smoking without getting cancer ...

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... and passing a pedastrian crossing with cars waiting at the traffic lights is the same as inhaling some couples of cigarettes ...

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I'm with urs on this. When i was growing up, my parents used to always talk about their grandparents and how they taught them (in terms of food) - everything in moderation. Several of those great-grandparents ate, drank and smoked to a degree I would not consider moderate - but other than those killed during the Second World War, they lived to a very considerable age, as did my grandparents. I'm not advocating living on smoked almonds and martinis, and smoking packs and packs of ciggies, but I think we often cause ourselves unnecessary stress worrying about all of these studies and their results.

For a while my dad was 'following' bananas - one year they were good for you, another year bad and you needed to monitor how many you ate - then they were good for you again.

Moderate moderation. I'll try not to eat too much charcoal, but I'll have some of that lightly charred roast beef on my way to the bloody bits (a bit, i probably have beef less than once a month).

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ehBeth- IMO how a person reacts to possibly dangerous substances relates their genetic presdispositions, as well as the amount of dangerous substances they ingest/smoke.

For years, my husband ate bacon & eggs seven days a week. He is allergic to a lot of foods, so he eats predominantly beef. His cholesterol and triglicerydes are perfect. Go figure! If I ate that way, my cholesterol would be up the roof!

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I think worrying about cholesterol has caused more illness than cholesterol has. I sound like some of my parents' friends when i say that, but it's something i'm starting to believe more each year. I'm not saying that being aware of cholesterol levels isn't important for some people, but it's not vital for everyone - look at how the studies keep changing their tunes on good and bad cholesterol.

I think urs had it right.

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Actually, I'm not going to change my habits that much.

But I do think that some alterations in cooking/baking ( e-g- lowering the degree of the heta) really could do some benefits.

There will always be a pro and contra - regarding, who is paying for the statistics.

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I don't really over cook starches, I don't think. I'd say that the news has me more aware of what I eat and less likely to buy foods that will be higher in the chemical. I don't tend to eat that type of food anyway.

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Acrylamide - Does This Change your Cooking/Baking/Eating?

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