WARNING: Acrylamide in Foods

[EricP]

Hey guys, I just wanted to bring this information to your attention as it seems to be surfacing in current news articles.

http://www.cspinet.org/new/200206251.html

Please note the last paragraph:

"A California attorney has formally demanded that McDonald’s and Burger King place a cancer warning on their French fries, as required by the state’s Proposition 65. Burger King faces a legal deadline of late June and McDonald’s of early July to respond. " The article was written in 2002, so I don't know how far these attorneys have gotten.

My wife brought this article to me since I often 'snack' on a bag of chips every so often and was concerned that I might be eating too much of this bad stuff.

Regards,

EricP

[Elin]

I feel almost obligated to answer this since the acrylamide discovery was done in Sweden about two years ago. It is true that they have found acrylamide in fries, chips and other fried products rich in starch. And removing these from your diet would probably be good, besides acrylamide they contain lots of fat and other unhealthy substances. But the problem is that not only deep-fried potato products contains acrylamide.

Acrylamide is found in all starch-rich foods that has been heated to more than 100 degrees celsius (212 degrees farenheight). That means bread also contain this substance. But still coarse rye bread is considerd healthy. The resarchers found higher amounts of acrylamide in wholemeal bread than in white bread. But the persons who ate wholemeal bread had lower rates of cancer than persons who ate white bread or no bread.

I believe that fries, chips, sweeted cereals and things like that is bad for our health. Feel free to avoid it. But I think that you shouldn't take this alarm too serious. There are no studies that show that acrylamide accually cause cancer to humans. The reason that the researchers have this hypotesis is that rats got cancer when they were exposed to high concentrations of the substance. The only studies about acrylamide and human health that has been done shows that people who have worked with concentrated acrylamide got nerve demage. Remeber though that they every day were exposed to amounts that most of us wouldn't be exposed to during our whole life.
But what has been shown in studies on humans is that coarse rye bread is good for our health. It lowers the risk of getting cancer, colon problems and more.

Of course, eat healthy and feel free to avoid deep-fried food, but don't change your whole diet because of this article. If we try to eat mostly unrefined and organic food we don't need to worry about this.

[Casey]

I'm not too worried about acrylamide in healthy whole-grain foods like bread, but it's just one more reason to avoid fried and highly processed snack foods. The scary thing is that some kids start eating junk like french fries at one and two years old - for a lot of kids french fries are the only "vegetable" that they eat. Imagine what a lifetime of dangerous chemicals and saturated fat does to their bodies? :(

[duckie1978]

I agree with the other posters: while I think that it is very important that this info gets out to consumers, it should really be targeted at the people who eat chips and all that junk on a daily basis in obscene amounts. My students eat junk all the time because "there isn't any bad in there but fat."

Anything in large quantities can be "bad" so these notices always are great reinforcers for me. I could be a glutton and eat a whole bag of chips or whatever, but thanks to this article, I am reminded even more why junk food is a special treat and not a daily staple.

[vegma]

Oh no, here we go again. I convinced myself that it was ok to feed my 4yo whole grain, organic corn chips (made with non-hydrogenated oils, of course) as a vehicle for a bean dip that he won't eat any other way. Since my little vegan doesn't like veggies, this bean dip is one way I get tomatoes and collard greens in him!! Now what?! I would love to see some supporting studies. Its not that I doubt that they've found yet another unhealthy thing, but when you hear something once with no other documentation, it always leaves me wondering...

[vegma]

How many times have I said "ignorance is bliss"?! Once again it applies! I decided to see if any new studies confirmed the acrylamide study, and they do. So far, the recommendation is to continue to eat a varied diet with lots of whole grains, fruits and veggies (yea!), but the fact remains that heating foods above 120 degrees (boiling not an issue) causes acrylamides (a carcinogen) to form. For anyone else that's interested, I've pasted links to a UK follow-up of the Swedish findings, a WHO site with some good links, and an FDA site that lists lots of "objectives" but doesn't say much else!

www.foodstandards.gov.uk/multimedia/webpage/acrylamide_study_faq/

www.who.int/foodsafety/chem/chemicals/acrylamide/en/

www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/acrypla2.html