The Real Burn of Burnt Food

With scientific research comes more knowledge of things that are bad for us and we're left to make decisions based on what we know. We want to live life to the fullest, but we also want to live long and healthy lives. Some things we can't help. But everything else is a matter of omission, moderation, or indulgence.

I was drawn to an article about foods that are even better when they're burnt. Keeping in mind when they/I say burnt it means edible burnt. Who doesn't love a char-broiled hamburger, the crispy skin of a grilled hot dog, grilled corn, roasted peppers? And nothing says homemade mac and cheese or lasagna like brown crusty cheese. As with many things that we love to enjoy, the burn is bad for your health. Wait, what?

There was a slight "disclaimer" in the article that burnt foods may be unhealthy and a few comments that mention carcinogens, so that sparked my curiosity. I'd known that charcoal grilling adds carcinogens to your food and as with anything bad for you, should be enjoyed in moderation. But beautiful burnt cheese? I went to ask.com and typed "is burnt food carcinogenic?". I found this very informative article What's wrong with burnt food?.

This article explains that carcinogens are substances either known or believed to cause cancer. They occur both naturally and unnaturally in the environment and almost always make it into and/or onto our food. This, unfortunately, we really can't help. But we can keep it from getting much worse. When you cook these foods, you get chemical reactions called Maillard reactions. This is when amino acids react with reducing sugars. This is the good stage but there's a fine line between this and bad for you. When the heat is prolonged or the temperatures are too high; when things start to go from brown to black, thus starts pyrolysis. Pyrolysis changes the Miallard reaction molecules into carcinogenic compounds. Not only that, but you've greatly reduced the nutritional value of your food.

There's more information and quite a few tips on minimizing carcinogens on these sites:

www.healthy-food-site.com
live-in-green.com