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Barbecues and Their Connection With Cancer

Barbecuing meats, fish or poultry over glowing coals or a gas grill so hey sizzle is one of summer’s most succulent pleasures. Unfortunately, it is not the healthiest way to prepare food. However you can change your grilling technique to make it better for you.

When meat, fish or poultry are barbecued, it causes two kinds of chemicals that can cause the kind of genetic mutations that result in cancer. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are formed when fat drips down onto an open flame, sending up a column of smoke that coats the food with carcinogens. Heterocyclic amines (HCAs) are created when meat, poultry and fish are cooked at high heat until well done, as in pan-frying, broiling or barbecuing. It’s the food’s natural amino acids reacting with creatine (a chemical in muscle meats) that produce the HCAs.

Microwaving, stewing, boiling or poaching pose little risk because they’re done at lower temperatures. Oven roasting is somewhere in the middle. Rare to medium roasting is relatively safe. But well-done roast beef contains plentiful HCAs, as does gravy made from pan drippings.

If you modify your grilling techniques in a way that produces few or no carcinogens you can make your food healthier: lower cooking temperatures, marinate the food, precook it in the microwave, and wrap it in foil for the cooking. Make sure to avoid charred or blackened foods. “What we can tell people is not to eat well-done meat, and especially well-done red meat,” says Rashmi Sinha, a nutritional epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

Although it is important to thoroughly cook hamburger and poultry to eliminate bacteria, it should be cooked only until it is done, not charred. This requires a balancing act, because you don’t want to trade carcinogens for salmonella or E. coli.

Precook food to reduce time on the grill, and thus avoid foods coated with carcinogens. Also when you precook food, you avoid food that is burned on the outside and raw on the inside.

Ways To Precook Food:

· Use steam or a low oven until almost done to avoid time on the grill.

· Wrap food in foil for barbecuing to prevent PAHs in the smoke from being deposited on food. Even place a sheet of foil under the food to shield it from smoky byproducts.

· Microwave the food for 2-5 minutes to release meat juices containing HCA chemical precursors. By discarding that juice before grilling you get a 90% reduction of HCAs. Marinating food has health benefits. It is believed that marinades draw out the chemical precursors of carcinogens. In Mr. Knize’s lab, he marinated chicken with a standard recipe containing olive oil, cider vinegar, garlic, mustard, lemon juice, salt and brown sugar, before grilling. Using sophisticated analytical chemistry, he found levels of a major HCA compound fell by more than 90% in the marinated poultry. However, when the grill time was extended 30-40 minutes, another HCA compound rose, so it’s still important to keep grilling time down.

An occasional barbecue isn’t harmful, if your eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables containing natural cancer fighting compounds and as long as it’s not a regular habit.

Recipe :          Dijon Chicken Kebabs (Serves 4)

Ingredients:     1 pound small red potatoes, halved                3 Tablespoons honey

                        2 Tablespoons honey dijon mustard              1 Tablespoon lemon juice      

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper                   16 large mushrooms

                        16 cherry tomatoes

1 pound boneless, skinless, chicken breasts cut into 32 small pieces

1.     Preheat the grill to a medium heat. In a large pot of boiling water, cook the potatoes for 10 minutes to blanch. Drain. Precook your chicken in boiling water for a few minutes.

2.     In a small bowl, combine the honey, mustard, lemon juice, thyme, and pepper. Add the chicken and mushrooms, tossing to coat well.

3.     Alternately thread the chicken, mushrooms. tomatoes and potatoes onto 8 skewers. Grill the kebabs on foil over the grill and covered, turning occasionally, for 8 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Divide the skewers among four plates and serve.

Health Gateway Discoveries: Barbecuing and Cancer

The National Cancer Institute’s Fact Sheet on barbecuing: http://cancernet.nci.nih.gov/clinpdq/risk/Heterocyclic_Amines_in_Cooked_Meats.html

The Center for Science in the Public Interest’s information on grilling: http://www.cspinet.org/nah/grilling.html

 Oncolink (http://cancer.med.upenn.edu/) has been established to disseminate information relevant to the field of oncology,educate health care personnel, educate patients, families, and other interested parties, and rapidly collect information pertinent to the specialty.

National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (http://www.cansearch.org/) is a guide is to assist those not experienced in finding sources on the Net to go to cancer resources quickly to find answers to their questions or at least become more informed patients and caretakers.