Since so many of us (including me) like grilling so much, I found many of the studies made no sense to me. I'm no scientist but, living in the South, grilling has been second nature to me for a really long time. So far I haven't noticed any ill effects, but in all fairness I've only been doing this for about 50 years. Read this and see if you agree or disagree.
Grill Death
Fallacy: Grilled meat is bad for you
When rats are fed high doses of nicely browned grilled meat they have a statistically higher chance of getting cancer. But that is rats. So far no study of humans has found the same result. Despite that, the US National Toxicology Program says that these chemicals (heterocyclic amines) are “reasonably anticipated” to be carcinogens in humans. Why? No one is really sure. Tripterygium wilfordii is deadly to rats but is consumed by humans as an oral contraceptive with no negative impact. A recent study of humans consuming grilled meat found no association between that and cancer. Let’s face it – for thousands of years humans have cooked meat and evolved (some might say) to be tolerant to it. When was the last time you saw a rat cooking a barbecue? Humans are not rats – what is deadly to a rat is not always deadly to a human.
Did you know: Potato chips, breakfast cereals, crusty bread, etc. are all crunchy because of the same chemicals as those that produce the nice browned effect on grilled meat. Furthermore, these chemicals are known to be antioxidants that suppress the bacteria that causes peptic ulcers.
If everything this article from Listverse says is fact, I'm in big trouble. With all these chemicals being bad for me, I figure I only have about 50 or 60 years left! The reason? All of the things listed in the last paragraph are some of my favorite foods!
Coffee out on the patio this morning. I have some A&W root beer cake that's very tasty!
