World Health Probe of Acrylamide Every newspaper I read these days is shouting headings and headlines of the “new” cancer risks of eating fast foods, and in particular deep fried foods and high heat cooking. This news has been around for decades but nobody (average citizen) paid attention to the warning. People I've spoken to about the "scare" simply say that everything seems to be carcinogenic so why worry... And even the scientists on the WHO board have recommended that the world take no immediate action. Is that negligent or does it keep the world from panicking over a small matter? For a number of years fast food restaurants and movie theatres have been told to stop using lard for deep frying and cooking because of the trans-fats and serious health ramifications. Most of them complied and the populous relaxed a bit thinking that they were now getting healthy french fries! Not so, as we can see today. The talks started yesterday in Geneva with at least one Canadian scientist included. What caught my interest was that they called french fries, potato chips and bread our staple foods! I wonder which nutrition guide they used to come up with that description? Potatoes may be a staple, but they are healthy if cooked in water and eaten whole or in the form of mashed potatoes...and potato chips, a stape food? I think not. They have yet to disclose which type of bread carried high amounts of acrylamide since the word was “some types of bread.” Starch is definitely a factor as all the above contain large amounts, in fact almost 100%, so one can begin to analyse from there. And make changes, folks! The whole story came out when workers in a tunnel who were handling acrylamide (known to be in the waterproof glue used extensively in a non-ventilated area, in this case) were tested for the amount in their systems. It turned out that the non-tunnel subjects had just as much acrylamide in their blood as those working in the tunnels, which sent up red flags immediately. The control subjects ate fries, chips, bread, and, in general, starchy foods that were deep fried. No surprises there. An interesting use for acrylamide has been in water purification. Apparently, polyacrylamide, a form of plastic, attaches itself to large molecules in water and sinks them to the bottom to be removed. Hmmm, I wonder if this, in itself, has been a cause of cancer along with the aluminum, long used to purify large-city water? Scientists are now speculating as to the cause of cancer in patients who were not abusing themselves with any of the substances that are known carcinogens. I attended a funeral several days ago of a 50 year-old woman who had lived a seemingly exemplary healthy life. She didn’t drink, smoke, or abuse her body in any way…except that she loved to cook and bake. In fact, during the eulogy, this hobby was mentioned several times. Certainly food for thought… The scientist in Geneva are seriously considering ways to warn people and plan a line of attack to reduce the amount of acrylamide in food. They seem to be stymied at this point since so many people eat that kind of food without a second thought. Fast food is not a fad anymore. It will be very interesting to see what they come up with. Can you imagine all the McDonalds,A & Ws and fast food outlets in general shutting down their deep fryers and offering their hungry customers mashed potatoes and salad? Not a likely scenario. Maybe the “slow food movement” will have an increase in membership soon, though. Slow cooking and eating is seeing a resurgence in Europe and is "slowly" moving into North America. I think I’ll find their website and join up now, while I’m still healthy and know what I should and shouldn’t eat. It won’t be hard at all! Back to the Writing Index