By Mark Sisson
As Primal eaters, you have no doubt been the recipient of many an email populated with scary studies about the association of meat consumption with various degenerative diseases like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Heck, a new one just came out that I’m sure I’ll be receiving dozens of times in my inbox (turns out controlling for body weight negates the links!). And though most of them can be explained by the “healthy user effect,” the failure to control for other variables, and the processed meat versus unprocessed meat dichotomy, a few do appear to suggest a link between certain diseases and eating meat that’s been cooked a certain way:
- One study found that people who prefer their red meat well done are 8.8 times more likely to get colorectal cancer than people who prefer their red meat rare.
- Another study found that well done meat seems to increase the risk of pancreatic cancer.
- And a recent review of several different studies found that consumption of well-done meat is associated with elevated cancer risk in humans.
Cooking isn’t bad, of course. It makes food taste better, gives us access to a wider range of foods – like starches – that would otherwise be fairly indigestible, kills food-borne pathogens, improves the texture of foods (meat becomes more tender, fat renders, vegetables soften), and increases the calories we can extract from food.
But there’s a dark side to cooking. Depending on the methods and ingredients you use and the temperature you apply, cooking can create carcinogenic and toxic compounds, and oxidized fats – and these may be involved in some of the diseases studied. It may not be the meat itself, but how we treat the meat. So – what compounds should we be worrying about?
Heterocyclic Amines
When meat is directly exposed to high temperature, the amino acids, sugars, and creatine within it react to form heterocyclic amines (HCA). In animal studies, HCAs are mutagenic – they provoke harmful DNA mutations, can change gene expression, and cause cancer. Epidemiological studies link HCA intake in humans to many of these same cancers (including cancer of the <a title=”Xenobiotic metabolizing gene variants, dietary heterocyclic amine intake, and risk of prostate cancer.” href=”http://ift.tt/1gNfvqg; target=”_blank”>prostate, pancreas, and <a title=”dietary intake of heterocyclic amines, meat-derived mutagenic activity, and risk of colorectal adenomas.” href=”http://ift.tt/1iryWBG; target=”_blank”>colon). Caution appears to be warranted.
Advanced Glycation Endproducts
When steak is browned, when sugar is caramelized, or when you get a nice crust going on that roast, you’re creating advanced glycation endproducts via the Maillard reaction. Most AGEs actually form endogenously, inside our bodies, but dietary AGEs appear to have some negative effects of their own. dietary AGEs have been shown to drain a person’s antioxidant stores, opening them up to an inflammatory cascade that includes insulin resistance and, potentially, diabetes, while low-AGE diets can <a title=”Consumption of a diet low in advanced glycation end products for 4 weeks improves insulin sensitivity in overweight women.” href=”http://ift.tt/1iryVhd; target=”_blank”>increase insulin sensitivity in humans.
Oxidized Lipids
Polyunsaturated fatty acids in meat (or in the seed oils used to marinade the meat) can become oxidized when exposed to high heat. When eaten, these <a title=”The role of dietary oxidized cholesterol and oxidized fatty acids in the development of atherosclerosis.” href=”http://ift.tt/1gNfvGA; target=”_blank”>oxidized fats are incorporated into circulating lipids, thus increasing the risk of atherosclerosis.
The easiest way to minimize your exposure to heat-related toxins is to emphasize gentle cooking methods and de-emphasize higher heat methods.
More abrasive cooking methods include:
- Grilling over an open flame – the worst, grilling is consistently associated with higher levels of HCA
- Pan-frying
- Deep frying
- Broiling
- Smoking
- Searing
- Blackening
- Incinerating
Minimize those.
Gentler cooking methods include:
- Steaming
- Poaching
- Boiling
- Braising
- Simmering
- Baking
- Pressure cooking
- Crockpottin’
Emphasize those, because they all limit the formation of HCAs, AGEs, and oxidized lipids. They’ll take you most of the way, but there are other variables to tweak (or at least be aware of) for greater protection:
Cooking temperature – Most studies indicate that 300
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