From poisoning to cancer: what are the risks associated with cooking and how to avoid danger
'13.06.2021'
Source: Air force
Do you spend a lot of time in the kitchen preparing food? Do you like shish kebab from a hot skewer or well-done roast beef? Scientists believe your health is at risk from exposure to toxic chemicals released to an increased risk of lung cancer. How to avoid all this, says Air force.
“The only reason we evolved as humans was that we started cooking our food [on fire],” says Jenna Maccioki, an immunologist at the University of Sussex, England. “When we only ate raw food, we had to eat all the time because the body was lacking nutrients all the time.”
This point of view is popular among biologists. There is a solid catalog of evidence confirming that human evolution is directly related to the use of fire.
When our distant ancestors started cooking on fire, they made it easier for them to digest and get nutrients from food, which ultimately helped to widen the gap between the amount of energy spent on digesting food and the amount of energy received from eaten foods. Well, of course, they had to chew less.
It is believed that thanks to culinary skills, not only the size of our jaws has decreased, but also our brain has increased - we were able to afford the energetic activity of neurons.
In addition, cooking on fire kills many potentially dangerous bacteria in foods, protecting us from food poisoning.
Nevertheless, despite all the obvious advantages of such cooking, we ask ourselves the question: is it possible that high-temperature processing of products carries hidden health risks?
Diet based on raw foods is becoming more and more popular in the world, we are observing a tendency to invent and apply new cooking methods. And scientists in the meantime, with increasing distrust, are exploring all aspects of hot dishes.
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Acrylamide: Overcooking Increases Cancer Risk
Not all cooking methods are equally suitable for all products.
For foods high in starch, the main risk is acrylamide, a chemical used in polymer production but naturally occurring, for example, when frying potatoes - in general, every time food is cooked for a long time at high temperatures.
Ingredients of dishes rich in carbohydrates (potatoes, cereals, cakes and pastries, coffee, etc.) are especially vulnerable - the reaction of these foods to temperature is easy to notice by the formation of an appetizing crust, darkening, as from a burn.
Acrylamide has long been suspected of carcinogenicity, although most of the evidence comes from animal studies.
One way or another, Jenna Machchioki (and nutritionists in particular) advises, just in case, to refrain from frequent consumption of foods high in acrylamide, paying particular attention to industrially processed products.
In particular, the British Food Standards Authority recommends stopping the golden crust during cooking and don’t store the potatoes in the refrigerator if you plan to cook them at high temperature (cooling the potato releases sugar in it, which in combination with amino acids creates acrylamide when heated) .
In general, the basic idea is not to overcook. However, the risks do not end there.
“Things like acrylamide in foods are just one of the many risks of modern nutrition,” warns Maccioki, who studies how diet and lifestyle affects the human immune system. "By itself, it is unlikely to provoke the development of cancer, but if a person does not eat properly at all, this is what we need to influence to reduce the risks."
Combustion Products and Lung Cancer
Cooking at high temperatures affects not only what we ultimately eat, but also what we breathe.
To begin with, cookers themselves are a major cause of disease in developing countries, where they cook on fire using wood, coal and agricultural waste. Indoor smoke, according to WHO, is the cause of death - up to 3,8 million deaths per year.
However, the use of certain food components in cooking leads to air pollution at home.
A 2017 study published in the Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology found evidence that inhaling combustion products from cooking with vegetable oil increases the risk of lung cancer.
Scientists analyzed 23 studies of 9411 cases of cancer in China and concluded that not only the lack of good ventilation in the kitchen increases the risk of developing cancer, but also different ways of cooking, each of which has its own consequences for the human body. For example, stir-frying in a pan increases the risk of lung cancer, while deep-frying does not.
Other studies provide evidence that inhaling the combustion products of vegetable oil during pregnancy can affect newborn weight loss.
In 2017, Taiwanese scientists compared the amount of aldehydes (many of which are toxic to humans) released by various cooking methods. The authors of the study believe that the products of the combustion of sunflower oil and methods such as strong frying and sautéing carry higher risks of aldehyde emission, while vegetable oil with a low content of unsaturated fats (for example, palm or rapeseed) in combination with milder methods the preparation does not produce such volumes of aldehydes (and such aldehydes that are harmful).
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Grilled meat and diabetes
Fans to eat meat should think about how they cook it and how often they eat it.
Various studies have found that cooking red meat over an open fire, as well as at high temperatures in the oven, can increase the risk of diabetes among female meat-eaters in the United States (it was not clear why it was women, not men, who were at risk).
Another study found a relationship between cooking at high temperature or over an open fire and type XNUMX diabetes in those who eat red meat, as well as chicken and fish, regardless of the gender of these people and the amount of consumption.
It is important to note that none of these studies took into account lifestyle components, for example, the regularity of physical exercises or aspects of a person’s diet (say, sugar intake). So it is quite possible, all this could play a role.
Nevertheless, scientists suggested using alternative methods (for example, steaming), which, apparently, are not associated with the risk of developing diabetes.
Alternative methods
Over the past century, cooking techniques have evolved and become more and more diverse, moving away from the old primitive methods. Microwaves, electric stoves and toasters can now be found in almost every home - the need for an open fire has disappeared.
More and more scientists suggest using the microwave - depending on what you are going to cook, of course.
For example, a recent study in Spain found that microwave is one of the safest ways to cook mushrooms.
With this method, the product seriously increases the level of antioxidants that help protect cells from damage. But when boiling or frying mushrooms, the amount of antioxidants decreases.
Scientific evidence shows that the best way to preserve vitamins and nutrients when cooking vegetables is to cook them for a short time and use as little liquid as possible.
In this sense, the microwave is a good way, because less useful is lost in it, in contrast to, say, boiling, in which all the useful ingredients pass into water.
“Steaming vegetables rather than boiling water is also much better. Problems arise every time you cook something for a long time using high temperatures - it reduces the nutritional value or produces some of the unwanted compounds like acrylamide, ”Maccioki stresses.
Another problem with frying or any other cooking method that uses vegetable oil is what happens after heating with some fats.
It turns out that under the influence of high temperature a number of chemical reactions take place in the oil, and you run the risk of getting a completely different ingredient compared to the one you started cooking.
But this does not happen with all types of oil. For example, olive oil (as opposed to, say, coconut) quite quickly reaches the point after which it begins to rapidly lose nutritional and beneficial properties and the production of harmful compounds such as aldehydes.
Nevertheless, Machchioki recommends using olive oil in most cases, since it is very useful. You just do not need to use it for a long preparation of something.
And yet, despite the fact that some cooking methods carry certain risks for our health, a complete rejection of cooked food in favor of raw can be much more harmful.
According to one German study, people who have been on a raw food diet for several years have found weight loss of about 9 kg (in men) and 12 kg (in women).
By the end of the study, a significant proportion of these people were underweight, and about a third of women had stopped their periods. The authors came to a conclusion that sounds scientifically low-key: "a very strict raw food diet cannot be recommended for long-term use."
“Ultimately, cooking meats and foods high in carbohydrates is a good way to increase nutrient availability as opposed to a raw food diet,” notes Jenna Maccioki. - Imagine a raw potato. It is very difficult to extract nutrients from it, not to mention the fact that this process is unlikely to bring you pleasure. "
Apparently, our ancestors still knew what they were doing when they switched from raw to thermally processed food.
