Chicken Over Chips

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Chicken Over Chips

JoAnn Guest

Jan 11, 2007 08:55 PST

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Chicken Over Chips

By Robert L. Wolke

Wednesday, August 30, 2006; F01

 

 

 

I love potato chips. Doesn't everyone? But I have just thrown away

half a bag of them, and I intend to buy no more. Why? Because the

chemical acrylamide, a probable carcinogen, has been found in fried

starchy foods, especially potato chips and French fries.

 

With all the cancer-from-food alarms the media thrust upon us almost

every day, it's getting hard to avoid the impression that just

living causes cancer. And maybe it does.

 

Are eating and breathing perhaps the most dangerous things we can do?

 

I have never been one to perform the Chicken Little dance every time

a new food hazard hits the headlines. Even if reliable, repeated

research finds that a certain substance increases the risk of cancer

or some other misfortune, a risk is only a risk -- a statistical

probability, not a certainty. And remember: One factor in that

probability is the amount of the substance consumed, and that is

entirely within our control (you can eat just one potato chip).

 

Of course, it is only prudent to reduce our risks as much as

possible. Life is a game of perilous poker, in which we must play

the odds to win

-- to stay alive. Or it is a minefield, if you prefer that metaphor.

Either way, all risks are relative, to be weighed against each

other. Compare, for example, the hazard of 40 potato chips a day

versus 40 cigarettes a day. No contest.

 

The smoking statistics did persuade me to quit that habit. But why

did I swear off potato chips, when the jury has barely begun to

consider the hazards of acrylamide at potato-chip consumption

levels?

 

When no safe maximum level of acrylamide in human foods has been

determined? Well,

it's a lot easier to quit potato chips than to quit smoking, and

there are many alternative crunchy-munchies that can accompany my

cocktail without endangering my health -- at least not so far as has

been discovered. So I switched to peanuts. Will their time come?

 

The Chemical

 

Acrylamide is a particularly interesting case. It is not a

contaminant that has somehow found its way into our foods. It's

nobody's " fault. "

Acrylamide is created by chemical reactions that take place during

cooking. (Do I hear the raw food crowd shouting, " We told you so " ?)

 

I had read occasional stories about acrylamide, but I became more

conscious of the issue when I read " No Quick Fix for Acrylamide in

Food, " an article in the Aug. 14, 2006, issue of Chemical &

Engineering News, the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical

Society. In it, author Bette Hileman reviews the current scientific

and political status (there is always a political angle) of

acrylamide in foods. Here are

some facts I gleaned from that article, augmented by my own digging.

 

Acrylamide is a chemical used in industry that has long been known

to damage the central nervous system, the immune system and the

reproductive system, and probably to cause cancer.

 

Only recently (in

2002) was it discovered in foods at hundreds of times the

0.5-parts-per-billion level considered safe in drinking water by the

Environmental Protection Agency.

 

Here's how it gets into our food.

 

When any food containing both starches and proteins is heated, the

proteins' amino acids react with the starches' sugars (in the so-

called Maillard reaction) to form dozens of highly flavorful

compounds, many of which happen to be brown. And do we love our

browned foods! Think French

fries, potato chips, toast, pretzels and roasted coffee beans, to

name a few. Unfortunately, among these dozens of compounds lurks

acrylamide in various amounts, depending on cooking time and

temperature (French fries and potato chips are cooked at the highest

temperatures, making for high

acrylamide levels), moisture content and the amounts of the sugar

glucose and the amino acid asparagine in the food.

 

A survey of the acrylamide levels in hundreds of food products can

be found at http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/acrydata.html#u1004 .

 

The Politics

 

Food-safety authorities in Europe, most notably in Germany, have

instituted regulations to reduce the amounts of acrylamide in foods.

The

FDA has taken no action and has been strongly criticized for

dragging

its feet.

 

A " National Uniformity for Food Act " (H.R. 4167) recently passed the

U.S. House of Representatives, with 94 percent of Republicans

supporting

it and 64 percent of Democrats opposing. It has gone to the Senate,

where it was the subject of a hearing on July 27.

 

The act would prohibit states or local governments from enacting any

food-safety law that differs in any way from federal law, including

setting more stringent limits on toxic substances (though states

could

appeal to the FDA to retain their standards). If the bill (S. 3128)

passes the Senate, the FDA would be the sole arbiter of permissible

toxin levels in foods, overriding hundreds of existing state and

local

food safety laws. Supporters of the bill are the Grocery

Manufacturers

Association and other large food industry groups. Consumers Union,

the

Union of Concerned Scientists and the attorneys general of 39 states

oppose it, and so do I.

 

If you need help in deciding what to tell your senator about the

proposal, you can find a summary of the arguments for and against

the

bill at

/www.starchefs.com/features/food_debates/national_uniformity/index.sh

tml

..

 

Robert L. Wolke (http://www.robertwolke.com) is professor emeritus

of

chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. His latest book is " What

Einstein Told His Cook 2, the Sequel: Further Adventures in Kitchen

Science " (W.W. Norton, 2005). He can be reached atwo-.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-

dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082900310_pf.html

 

 

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

 

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