Back in 2002, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S.A., brought fear to many french fry lovers that it is carcinogen (meaning it could cause cancer). This is because most fried foods contain a chemical called acrylamide.
Acrylamide (or acrylic amide) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula C3H5NO. Acrylamide presents in many commonly
eaten foods — including French fries, potato chips, bread and even
coffee, and known to cause
cancer in lab animals when ingested at high doses
SO, HOW DOES ACRYLAMIDE GET INTO OUR FOODS?
Acrylamide turns up in
foods when they are fried, baked or
cooked at high temperatures. It forms from sugars and an amino acid
naturally found in food. It is part of the chemical reaction
that transforms the flavor and color of food when cooked. It has been in our foods probably for as long as we've been
cooking, but we didn't know it until a little over a decade ago.
The confusion part is that since the first warning given years ago,
researchers have been studying acrylamide in humans but
most of the studies published so far have failed to find any
links between dietary acrylamide and various types of cancers.
"We
found a suggestion that it might increase ovarian and endometrial
cancer, but we found nothing for breast and nothing for prostate," said Kathryn Wilson, an epidemiologist at Harvard's School of Public Health.
Still, even
though the human research hasn't pinpointed much of a cancer risk from
eating acrylamide, the National Toxicology Program lists it as "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen," because of those animal studies.
And as for
french fries? As Wilson notes: "You probably shouldn't be eating them
for a lot of other reasons than acrylamide content."
