Chips can kill: Official

Re: Acrylamide toxicity is nothing new

Acrylamide warnings seem to hit the mainstream press every five years or so, and they don't seem to have differed very much over the last few cycles.

Re: Acrylamide toxicity is nothing new

I remember the crap spread about carcinogenic nitrosyls forming due to a theoretical reaction in the stomach between nitrites and digestive hydrochloric acid, this was later proven to be bunkum by researchers.

Also in the news, shock horror as oxygen is know to produce carcinogenic free radicals !

Anyone get the impression these scare stories are often helpful in securing a research grant ?

Re: Acrylamide toxicity is nothing new

Replying to my own post (yes I know - very bad sport):

WAAAAIT a minute. Acrylamide should be soluble in cooking oil. Vegetable oil is reasonably polar and during cooking will also have non-zero water content. So while acrylamide dissolves better in polar solvents (water, methanol, etc) it should still dissolve in cooking oil as well. So, as the chemical reaction in question occurs on the _SURFACE_ of the exposed starchy material it should extract significant quantities of acrylamide and retain it for a while.

This also means that there is a hell of a difference between cooking something in a frying pan and dumping the oil, cooking in a frier (same oil over multiple cookings) and an industrial install which pretends to extract stuff from the oil and keeps on using it until it is gutter level.

What exactly did these guys test (I bet they tested a standard Fast Food frier used to Gutter Oil level). That has many things in it which are way worse than acrylamide anyway.

Re: Acrylamide toxicity is nothing new

Presumably it was tested the same way that passive smoking was found to be harmful - in doses of 200,000 cigarettes being burned at once, in a 9'x9'x9' room.

Re: and again...

Aye, a diet eating fewer chips and crisps sounds like a terrible idea.

Re: I believe the bacon...

+1

I have no desire to live a tiresome and insipid life just so I can "live" to be 105 and die dribbling into my cornflakes (unsweetened, with skimmed milk, natch).

Re: I believe the bacon...

Bravo and well said, and spoken also like someone who had a thoroughly good time enjoying warm weather, sunshine, barbecued bacon and a delectably crafted assortment of fine alcohol at the weekend.

You know you're too used to martinis when you pick up and swill thirstily from a glass of water and you're halfway through it before you realise it's actually neat gin that someone couldn't fit in the cocktail shaker.

"I never go jogging, it makes me spill my martini"

Re: Eat healthily,

Just consult this handy chart:

http://drboli.com/2015/03/12/human-mortality-predictor/

Or, if you're in a hurry, my abridged version:

Are you alive?

Yes: You’re going to die.

No: You’re lying, and you’re still going to die.

Re: What about that 'High Fructose Corn Syrup' then?

"esp with the ever increasing rates of Type 2 Diabetes."

But that increase in T2 diabetes is largely driven by obesity, with the content of the diet a smaller contributor than the net calorie value of the diet. Having said that, I suspect that the additional sugars those disgusting mega-calorie drinks sold by fast food outlets are probably a significant contributor to the problem (like a large McDonalds shake at 488 kcal). The fast food outlets could move to a diet-by-default approach, but seem to lack any initiative. A bit like their customers, in that respect.

Re: What about that 'High Fructose Corn Syrup' then?

It's got about the same proportion of fructose in it as table sugar.

Not sure if that was a pun as you didn't deploy the appropriate icon and warned of nonboffinary... so... please forgive the pedantry if misguided... but..

They're chemically "reducing" sugars (reducing = susceptible to oxidation)

Not physically "reducing" sugars (reducing = diminishing)

Re: Rubbish

Yup, you've got to watch out for those sslads. Vicious little critters, turn your back and they'll have the lettuce out of your BLT before you know it.

Invest in sslad repellent now!

Re: Rubbish

Be fair, no-one every burned their house down washing lettuce.

Surely when done properly(*) the biggest risk in chips is the cooking method, provided you're careful about that you'll be fine.

* Properly means a proper pan, filled with proper fat (beef dripping).

Re: Rubbish

True, but how many people have caused house fires by cutting up salads?

And lumps of it can disrupt shipping!

" I for one have never seen any animals in the que at my local chippy."

Speak for yourself, mate. At my local chip shop the entire evolutionary chain is represented, although higher life forms are fairly scant.

Poke your head through the door late one friday evening.

"not supposed to eat....anything that looked remotely palatable apart from Delia Smith (did I say that out loud?)"

You did indeed, and very brave of you too.

Her recipes are good and dependable, but Mrs Smith doesn't do it for me. Lorraine Pascale on the other hand.....

"I'm still here, overweight, half dead, blind and bald but still quite capable of downing half a bottle of whiskey before a KFC breakfast bucket and still having time for a fag before going jogging ..."

Whoa, now that's just irresponsible! You can seriously damage yourself with too much jogging! Just ask Jim Fixx... wait, no, he died jogging, didn't he?

(Silly bugger, trying to outrun the Grim Reaper.)

Re: Dosage

its not banned now. Part of harmonisation of regulations following us joining the EEC/EU

Nonsense

How many of those original primitive men are alive now eh? Yes, well there you go, proves the point I would say.

In fact at least half of _all the people_ who have ever eaten acrylasmdn acrylssf that stuff are dead now, so that shows you how dangerous it is.

Signed

A scientist short of a research grant.

"burning meat over fire was almost certainly the first cooking technique discovered by primitive man, acrylamide hasn't caused that much of an effect so far."

It increased their lifespans considerably. More a-somethings, but less b-somethings.

Re: Hurumph!

Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not donuts too... say it isn't so..

Re: No problem

Sorry Tom, doesn't work that way

Roasted chicken (or grilled / griddled...) the brown crispy bits are Maillard products

Pies......the browning on the pastry is due to the Maillard reaction. So is the browning of the meat inside the pie

Chilli - if you fry or grill the mince before adding it to the chilli you have a Maillard reaction. Just as you do if you fry the onions or other veg

Lasagne - ditto, with the addition of the browning on the cheese topping is also due to the Maillard reaction.

As I said before, if you cook food and it goes brown, then the Maillard reaction is at work. And hence you get acrylamide

Re: Coffee?

Coffee beans are naturally rich of oils and carbohydrates, and they are heavily roasted before use.

Oy, don't get me started on the scientific misquotes I've been seeing on FB lately. I swear someone's glancing at headlines and making "This week in science" infograms without even understanding what they're writing.

Re: Bah!

Interestingly, my local fish wholesaler reckons that in his distribution area - roughly a 40 mile radius - theres only one chip shop still using beef fat. As far as he's aware all the rest are using veg oil of some kind. Not sure of the exact number of shops, but you're looking at maybe 100-150