Is a charred steak as carcinogenic as a cigarette?
January 3, 2012 5:01 AM Subscribe
Carcinogenic compounds can be produced by high temperature cooking of meats (grilling, frying, "broiling", BBQing); how real is the cancer risk compared to other normal day to day activities.
Is it mostly fear mongering and over-protective rubbish or is this a real health issue?
Its widely reported and discussed that cooking meats, particularly fatty meats, at higher temperatures - pan frying, BBQ grilling, cooking under a grill ("broiling" in USA) - can produce Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and Heterocyclic Amines (HCAs) both of which are considered carcinogenic or carcinogens (and variously reported as "cancer causing").
I have even met people who would refuse to eat burnt toast on this basis. I always thought it was mostly fear mongering.
However, I'm currently reading this encyclopedia on food and cooking (by Harold McGee published in USA) and he keeps mentioning these warnings on carcinogens. Why?
How does eating a slightly charred steak compare with smoking a cigarette?
Its widely reported and discussed that cooking meats, particularly fatty meats, at higher temperatures - pan frying, BBQ grilling, cooking under a grill ("broiling" in USA) - can produce Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and Heterocyclic Amines (HCAs) both of which are considered carcinogenic or carcinogens (and variously reported as "cancer causing").
I have even met people who would refuse to eat burnt toast on this basis. I always thought it was mostly fear mongering.
However, I'm currently reading this encyclopedia on food and cooking (by Harold McGee published in USA) and he keeps mentioning these warnings on carcinogens. Why?
How does eating a slightly charred steak compare with smoking a cigarette?
Mankind has cooked meat over fire for millennia. If it were that dangerous, the behavior would have been bred out of us by now.
posted by mkultra at 5:38 AM on January 3, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by mkultra at 5:38 AM on January 3, 2012 [1 favorite]
I am neither a doctor, nor whatever type of person that would have knowledge on this sort of thing. However, I would imagine that "things that cause cancer" isn't quite as binary as a light switch. When you consider that things like apple pectin and sunlight, I'd imagine that it's not a case of whether or not something contains radiation, instead just assume that everything does in varying amounts.
So instead of asking whether or not this causes cancer, just consider how much evidence there is to support the theory of "causes cancer" exists in the past. If there were some sort of actual causation (read: not correlation) between these things and cancer, my guess is that we'd have figured that out in the couple thousand years of history man has with grilled meat.
posted by Blue_Villain at 5:42 AM on January 3, 2012
So instead of asking whether or not this causes cancer, just consider how much evidence there is to support the theory of "causes cancer" exists in the past. If there were some sort of actual causation (read: not correlation) between these things and cancer, my guess is that we'd have figured that out in the couple thousand years of history man has with grilled meat.
posted by Blue_Villain at 5:42 AM on January 3, 2012
I don't think the historical argument works, for two reasons: I believe that (a) it's only recently in historical terms that we began living long enough to suffer from most cancers; and (b) the habit of eating cooked meat probably has big advantages which may well outweigh the cancer risk - yet it may still be carcinogenic, which is the question here.
posted by Segundus at 5:58 AM on January 3, 2012 [7 favorites]
posted by Segundus at 5:58 AM on January 3, 2012 [7 favorites]
I also imagine that this has been determined by feeding lab subjects the human equivalent of 10 kilos of charred meat per day for six months. Space it out, don't overdo. Eat everything.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 5:58 AM on January 3, 2012
posted by halfbuckaroo at 5:58 AM on January 3, 2012
Mankind has cooked meat over fire for millennia. If it were that dangerous, the behavior would have been bred out of us by now.
This is a really poor argument. Cancer is largely a disease of older people for a reason - for a cell to become cancerous, you need numerous (I've heard at least ten) mutations in the same cell to occur, which must be accumulated over time. This is as cancerous cells must have several different properties in order to actually be malignant, and these properties are coded for by different genes. Considering that we've only really breached 40 years old in life expectancy this century, carcinogenic substances make a bigger difference now than even a century ago, since we actually live long enough to accumulate sufficient mutations to cause cancer now.
Beyond that, you also have to factor in that for many cultures and countries, especially after agriculture versus foraging and gathering set in, meat was viewed as a scarce luxury due to the expense of butchering livestock as opposed to just eating your crops.
In regards to the question at hand:
While I don't know any specific statistics/comparisons for how bad charred meat is for you, I'm with everyone else when I say that it's probably not something you should be too concerned with in your day-to-day life. I would argue that it's largely fear-mongering because I can think of many other factors right off the bat that would definitely have a greater impact on cancer risks than eating overcooked meat - my educated guess is that lifestyle choices such as smoking or tanning beds, other foods such as hormones/some types of pesticides or additives in every day food and preserved food, and even unavoidable aspects of our day-to-day life such as circadian disruption from electric lights at night and air pollution, would have a greater impact than charred meat.
This study supports my conjecture when it says that in laboratory tests, "the doses of HCAs and PAHs used in these studies were very high—equivalent to thousands of times the doses that a person would consume in a normal diet." (It also states that if you cook meat in a microwave for 2-3 minutes before actually grilling it, you can reduce risks, so that might be helpful.)
I think the people that you have met that are overly concerned with it are just trying to gain some control over an otherwise largely uncontrollable and very scary aspect of life. There are so many different factors that contribute to cancer risk, that changing one exceedingly minor factor such as charred meat probably wouldn't make a huge difference in your risk, but it certainly can act as a security blanket for some. It's just the irrational way people operate - sort of like how some people I know think that replacing their lightbulbs with energy-efficient ones can compensate for the fact that they drive two SUVs on a daily basis.
posted by Conspire at 6:08 AM on January 3, 2012 [6 favorites]
This is a really poor argument. Cancer is largely a disease of older people for a reason - for a cell to become cancerous, you need numerous (I've heard at least ten) mutations in the same cell to occur, which must be accumulated over time. This is as cancerous cells must have several different properties in order to actually be malignant, and these properties are coded for by different genes. Considering that we've only really breached 40 years old in life expectancy this century, carcinogenic substances make a bigger difference now than even a century ago, since we actually live long enough to accumulate sufficient mutations to cause cancer now.
Beyond that, you also have to factor in that for many cultures and countries, especially after agriculture versus foraging and gathering set in, meat was viewed as a scarce luxury due to the expense of butchering livestock as opposed to just eating your crops.
In regards to the question at hand:
While I don't know any specific statistics/comparisons for how bad charred meat is for you, I'm with everyone else when I say that it's probably not something you should be too concerned with in your day-to-day life. I would argue that it's largely fear-mongering because I can think of many other factors right off the bat that would definitely have a greater impact on cancer risks than eating overcooked meat - my educated guess is that lifestyle choices such as smoking or tanning beds, other foods such as hormones/some types of pesticides or additives in every day food and preserved food, and even unavoidable aspects of our day-to-day life such as circadian disruption from electric lights at night and air pollution, would have a greater impact than charred meat.
This study supports my conjecture when it says that in laboratory tests, "the doses of HCAs and PAHs used in these studies were very high—equivalent to thousands of times the doses that a person would consume in a normal diet." (It also states that if you cook meat in a microwave for 2-3 minutes before actually grilling it, you can reduce risks, so that might be helpful.)
I think the people that you have met that are overly concerned with it are just trying to gain some control over an otherwise largely uncontrollable and very scary aspect of life. There are so many different factors that contribute to cancer risk, that changing one exceedingly minor factor such as charred meat probably wouldn't make a huge difference in your risk, but it certainly can act as a security blanket for some. It's just the irrational way people operate - sort of like how some people I know think that replacing their lightbulbs with energy-efficient ones can compensate for the fact that they drive two SUVs on a daily basis.
posted by Conspire at 6:08 AM on January 3, 2012 [6 favorites]
Just want to quickly point out that most low life expectancies at birth come from childhood mortality. The life expected age of death for those who reach ten years of age has been into the late fifties or early sixties for a couple centuries at least. Much of the rest of this mortality could be attributed to 'workplace' hazards.
posted by meinvt at 6:16 AM on January 3, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by meinvt at 6:16 AM on January 3, 2012 [4 favorites]
we've only really breached 40 years old in life expectancy this century
This is not true for any reasonably or relevant interpretation. As meinvt points out, average mortality age is heavily skewed by youth/birth deaths. You need only look at the ages of the US's founders to see a clear counter-example to your assertion.
posted by phearlez at 6:50 AM on January 3, 2012 [2 favorites]
This is not true for any reasonably or relevant interpretation. As meinvt points out, average mortality age is heavily skewed by youth/birth deaths. You need only look at the ages of the US's founders to see a clear counter-example to your assertion.
posted by phearlez at 6:50 AM on January 3, 2012 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: I actually would usually err on the side of "its fear-mongering" and I will continue to cook foods based on perfection of flavour rather than avoiding a few 'carcinogens'. So this was more out of interest for me on the scientific basis.
So that CDC article linked to cites PAHs in the following levels:
- air: 0.15–19.3 ng/m³ in urban areas
- drinking water: 4 to 24 nanograms per liter
- typical U.S. diet is less than 2 micrograms per kilogram of food
another article states:
Laboratory-cooked beef, pork, and chicken are capable of producing tens of nanograms of MeIQx, IFP, and PhIP per gram of meat and smaller amounts of other heteroyclic amines.
so there is a 1000x increase in magnitude in food. (possibly in charred/cooked food).
Primarily I found it usual that it had been mentioned so many times in this particular Encyclopedia of Food and cooking - when usually chefs do not mention this at all in Cookbooks. So I thought it might be a nanny state USA thing about avoiding legal issues to include it so many times.
posted by mary8nne at 7:03 AM on January 3, 2012
So that CDC article linked to cites PAHs in the following levels:
- air: 0.15–19.3 ng/m³ in urban areas
- drinking water: 4 to 24 nanograms per liter
- typical U.S. diet is less than 2 micrograms per kilogram of food
another article states:
Laboratory-cooked beef, pork, and chicken are capable of producing tens of nanograms of MeIQx, IFP, and PhIP per gram of meat and smaller amounts of other heteroyclic amines.
so there is a 1000x increase in magnitude in food. (possibly in charred/cooked food).
Primarily I found it usual that it had been mentioned so many times in this particular Encyclopedia of Food and cooking - when usually chefs do not mention this at all in Cookbooks. So I thought it might be a nanny state USA thing about avoiding legal issues to include it so many times.
posted by mary8nne at 7:03 AM on January 3, 2012
Response by poster: sorry I meant I found it UNUSUAL that its mentioned so much in this book.
posted by mary8nne at 7:05 AM on January 3, 2012
posted by mary8nne at 7:05 AM on January 3, 2012
There are a huge number of PAH and I would think some are worse than others-probably having to do with the heat they are formed at. A lot of the PAH in grilled meat are from the cooking medium-the source of heat. Cooking over a wood fire introduces a lot of PAH into the food. I would guess that cooking using a gas grill but a dirty grate also increaseas PAH. But PAH introduced at a lower tempature, through smoking the meat say sure do taste different. Actual BBQ (using the smoke from a smouldering, low tempature fire)tastes vastly different than spit roasting, and if done right does not have much charring either. Just like searing meat than roasting/braising using an iron/steel/copper cooking vessel do probably does not have much in the way of PAH at all.
posted by bartonlong at 9:32 AM on January 3, 2012
posted by bartonlong at 9:32 AM on January 3, 2012
Primarily I found it usual that it had been mentioned so many times in this particular Encyclopedia of Food and cooking - when usually chefs do not mention this at all in Cookbooks. So I thought it might be a nanny state USA thing about avoiding legal issues to include it so many times.
On Food and Cooking is, among other things, about food chemistry, so McGee mentions this fact as a point of interest, rather than some sort of warning. Cookbooks don't mention this because they aren't about food chemistry. It certainly is not a legal disclaimer.
posted by ssg at 11:04 AM on January 3, 2012
On Food and Cooking is, among other things, about food chemistry, so McGee mentions this fact as a point of interest, rather than some sort of warning. Cookbooks don't mention this because they aren't about food chemistry. It certainly is not a legal disclaimer.
posted by ssg at 11:04 AM on January 3, 2012
I've read a study that found that overcooked foods worsen inflammation, but much moreso in diabetics than the overall population.
posted by Earl the Polliwog at 11:49 AM on January 3, 2012
posted by Earl the Polliwog at 11:49 AM on January 3, 2012
I wonder if you can clarify your question somewhat. You asked specifically about charred meat and carcinogens. But I wonder if that was indeed what you wanted to know specifically or was it a proxy for your real concerns.
Because the presence of carcinogens does not translate at all into cancer manifestation in humans. You can have the very same carcinogen in the exact same quantity in two different foods, and one food consumption will result in cancer over time, but in the other food it would not. That is how you get results such as the presence of carcinogens in vegetables, yet vegetable consumption having good heath outcomes. The explanation is that you consume a cocktail of chemicals in food, and all those chemicals modify one another and interact with your physiology. So the exact same carcinogen in the same quantity in vegetables is modified by other chemicals in the vegetables and this cocktail modifies how your body responds - benignly - versus perhaps in charred meat, where it's modified in different ways and results in morbidity. So a focus on mere presence of a carcinogen, leads some to dismiss carcinogens in general "because you find them everywhere including vegetables" (see valkyryns first post here) - which of course misses the point entirely.
May I therefore suggest that asking how many, and which, carcinogens are present, in what, is perhaps not what ultimately animates your question?
May I further suggest, that the focus on cancer perhaps also distorts what you really want to know? Because some foods may be great for cancer, but bad for cardiovascular outcomes - or the other way around. F.ex., moderate wine consumption may result in cardio benefits, but cancer danger for vulnerable people (esp. breast cancer).
So what you want to ask - if my speculation about your concerns is accurate - is for a different kind of data: what are the all cause mortality outcomes.
Like this: is the consumption of charred meat associated with greater all cause mortality compared to X?
That gets around the confounders I mentioned above: carcinogens being active in one case but not another, cancer being fatal or not, cancer-sparing but not mortality sparing, etc., etc.
There is epidemiological data out there in studies and metastudies regarding meat consumption in general, animal protein vs vegetable protein, charred and cured meats vs non-processed meat etc., perhaps someone can jump in and do a search for you, or you can look into PubMed.
But always remember, you should mostly ignore "case making" studies that are done in vitro, speculative, in non-human subjects, etc.
The gold standard is: what is the all-cause mortality outcome? Because, this is the final position downstream outcome that bypasses all the upstream speculation and delivers on the ultimate answer you really want: is it going to kill you, a human being, faster or not - and maybe how much faster and at what odds, if the data is there. Bottom line - everything else is noise.
posted by VikingSword at 3:43 PM on January 3, 2012
Because the presence of carcinogens does not translate at all into cancer manifestation in humans. You can have the very same carcinogen in the exact same quantity in two different foods, and one food consumption will result in cancer over time, but in the other food it would not. That is how you get results such as the presence of carcinogens in vegetables, yet vegetable consumption having good heath outcomes. The explanation is that you consume a cocktail of chemicals in food, and all those chemicals modify one another and interact with your physiology. So the exact same carcinogen in the same quantity in vegetables is modified by other chemicals in the vegetables and this cocktail modifies how your body responds - benignly - versus perhaps in charred meat, where it's modified in different ways and results in morbidity. So a focus on mere presence of a carcinogen, leads some to dismiss carcinogens in general "because you find them everywhere including vegetables" (see valkyryns first post here) - which of course misses the point entirely.
May I therefore suggest that asking how many, and which, carcinogens are present, in what, is perhaps not what ultimately animates your question?
May I further suggest, that the focus on cancer perhaps also distorts what you really want to know? Because some foods may be great for cancer, but bad for cardiovascular outcomes - or the other way around. F.ex., moderate wine consumption may result in cardio benefits, but cancer danger for vulnerable people (esp. breast cancer).
So what you want to ask - if my speculation about your concerns is accurate - is for a different kind of data: what are the all cause mortality outcomes.
Like this: is the consumption of charred meat associated with greater all cause mortality compared to X?
That gets around the confounders I mentioned above: carcinogens being active in one case but not another, cancer being fatal or not, cancer-sparing but not mortality sparing, etc., etc.
There is epidemiological data out there in studies and metastudies regarding meat consumption in general, animal protein vs vegetable protein, charred and cured meats vs non-processed meat etc., perhaps someone can jump in and do a search for you, or you can look into PubMed.
But always remember, you should mostly ignore "case making" studies that are done in vitro, speculative, in non-human subjects, etc.
The gold standard is: what is the all-cause mortality outcome? Because, this is the final position downstream outcome that bypasses all the upstream speculation and delivers on the ultimate answer you really want: is it going to kill you, a human being, faster or not - and maybe how much faster and at what odds, if the data is there. Bottom line - everything else is noise.
posted by VikingSword at 3:43 PM on January 3, 2012
There is increasing evidence that meat consumption is bad for you in many ways, not just in terms of cancer risk. Check out this page from the Cancer Project.
I found this to be particularly interesting:
posted by reddot at 5:06 PM on January 3, 2012
I found this to be particularly interesting:
In the United States, researchers studied Seventh-day Adventists, a religious group that is remarkable because, although nearly all members avoid tobacco and alcohol and follow generally healthful lifestyles, about half of the Adventist population is vegetarian, while the other half consumes modest amounts of meat. This fact allowed scientists to separate the effects of eating meat from other factors. Overall, these studies showed significant reductions in cancer risk among those who avoided meat.4 In contrast, Harvard studies showed that daily meat eaters have approximately three times the colon cancer risk, compared to those who rarely eat meat.The China Study is also good reading.
posted by reddot at 5:06 PM on January 3, 2012
Response by poster: I am specifically interested in carcinogens caused by charring / high temperature cooking of meat and/or vegetables.
I actually don't care at all about the overall mortality rates of these things. Its more a specific question about carcinogens and how real is this 'health issue' thereof.
i.e. I am generally skeptical of all health claims regarding these kind of things. or eat less fat / more soy blah blah - and don't trust any of this rubbish. (and follow more a Micheal Pollan notion of a balanced diet).
I don't think any results would significantly impact on my cooking methods. Its more about dissecting the propaganda.
posted by mary8nne at 3:01 AM on January 4, 2012
I actually don't care at all about the overall mortality rates of these things. Its more a specific question about carcinogens and how real is this 'health issue' thereof.
i.e. I am generally skeptical of all health claims regarding these kind of things. or eat less fat / more soy blah blah - and don't trust any of this rubbish. (and follow more a Micheal Pollan notion of a balanced diet).
I don't think any results would significantly impact on my cooking methods. Its more about dissecting the propaganda.
posted by mary8nne at 3:01 AM on January 4, 2012
BTW, did you google "cancer grilling meat"? The first few links:
http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/cancer-risk-from-bbq-meat
http://www.cancerproject.org/media/news/fiveworstfoodsreport.php
http://cancer.about.com/od/foodguide/a/grillingmeat.htm
posted by reddot at 7:31 AM on January 13, 2012
http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/cancer-risk-from-bbq-meat
http://www.cancerproject.org/media/news/fiveworstfoodsreport.php
http://cancer.about.com/od/foodguide/a/grillingmeat.htm
posted by reddot at 7:31 AM on January 13, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by valkyryn at 5:35 AM on January 3, 2012 [4 favorites]