Comments on: Acrylamide, sigh

By: Sustainable Dish | Sustainable Table

Sustainable Dish | Sustainable Table — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:29:51 +0000

[...] apparently, French fries and potato chips may be toxic, much to my dismay. Marion Nestle blogs about Canada’s addition of the substance Acrylamide to its list of known toxins. [...]

By: David Lineback

David Lineback — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:28:37 +0000

Acrylamide occurs in many foods prepared by heating (frying, baking, grilling, roasting, toasting) and commonly consumed. It is important to understand that ever since acrylamide was first discovered in food in 2002, the food industry, health and regulatory agencies across the globe and the scientific community have collaborated to better understand its formation and exposure. With all the research conducted thus far, little or no scientific evidence has shown that the amount of dietary acrylamide has a potential adverse effect on human health. Furthermore, virtually all nations involved in this important issue continue to recommend that people not change diets but continue to use the dietary recommendations from their national food authorities. See Dietary Guidelines for Americans (http://www.mypyramid.gov/).

By: albert

albert — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:13:01 +0000

You folks are hilarious. You are now scared over toast. Well, I guess its now your civic duty to cause as much alarm as possible, over TOAST! And of course, since bread is now a carcinogen, we must tax it. Right? Now please line up to chastise me over my extremism.

By: Mary Haight

Mary Haight — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:26:39 +0000

I’ve thought about this issue since it was announced that chefs were also in immediate danger from exposure to carcinogenic effects produced when cooking oils (canola) at high temperatures and will be interested to see how significant the acrylamide effect on foods is.

By: Sheila

Sheila — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:23:43 +0000

Never thought we would have to worry about a LD50 for well-toasted toast!

By: Janet Camp

Janet Camp — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:41:21 +0000

I have to post again because now that I’ve read it, I am totally alarmed that coffee (the roasting of the beans, not the brewing of) is on the list of practices that produce this stuff! Yikes, I thought I was exempt, but alas I’m a latte devotee for the last 35 years! I hope the research is confirmed that the levels aren’t high enough to be scary.

By: my year without

my year without — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:04:13 +0000

Double whammy! Now that I know that French fries have sugar (dextrose) AND acrylamide, I’ll have to nix the idea of ever savoring another deep fried potato again. Fortunately, I have my sweet potato French fries with coconut oil to fall back on at home. They are both sweet AND healthy.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:50:31 +0000

I don’t know about this… Humans have been eating burned food for tens and tens of thousands of years. How bad could it be?

As far as the MSDS of acrylamide goes – those documents are notorious for listing every possible negative consequence of exposure to a chemical and giving no real, practical indication of risk. The MSDS of water includes negative effects and the one of table salt is downright scary.

By: Inoculated Mind

Inoculated Mind — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:01:19 +0000

I remember when acrylamide was discovered in french fries – it caused a stir, but when I read the research the compounds were found at parts-per-billion levels, it didn’t sound so scary anymore. I think we’re more at risk from the caloric content of many fried foods than the acrylamide levels. We also eat a lot of harmful substances, especially in vegetables, so I wonder if they will also be labeled as hazardous or toxic substances that need to be regulated?

A little note: the acryamide seems to be produced by cooking carbohydrates and proteins together, but at temperatures above what water-cooking is capeable of. Oil can get much hotter so that’s why we find them in fried foods. But I bet something that is baked might also have them.

By: DF

DF — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:29:49 +0000

I don’t know how much acrylamide is in food, and it might be at low enough levels to be safe, but as a research associate in a biochemistry laboratory (acrylamide is used in making those pretty gels you see on TV forensics shows), I was taught many years ago to be very careful when handling acrylamide as it is carcinogenic. From the Material Safety Data Sheet:

LD50 LC50 Mixture:LD50 (ORAL RAT) IS 124 MG/KG
Routes of Entry: Inhalation:YES Skin:YES Ingestion:YES
Reports of Carcinogenicity:NTP:NO IARC:YES OSHA:NO
Health Hazards Acute and Chronic:ACUTE: HARMFUL IF SWALLOWED, INHALED, OR ABSORBED THROUGH SKIN. CAUSES EYE AND SKIN IRRITATION. MAY CAUSE NERVOUS SYSTEM DISTURBANCES. CHRONIC: LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS HAVE SHOWN MUTAGENIC EFFECTS. OVEREXPOSURE MAY CAUSE REPRODUCTIVE DISORDERS BASED ON TESTS WITH LABORATORY ANIMALS. CARCINOGEN.
Explanation of Carcinogenicity:SUBSTANCE LISTED WITH IARC AS A SUSPECTED CARCINOGEN.
Effects of Overexposure:EYE AND SKIN IRRITATION, NERVOUS SYSTEM DISTURBANCES.