Toxins from Cooking

There is an abundance of toxins currently known that are created from cooking. In this section we will only cover one called acrylamide. The New York Times reported (in 2002) that cooking most starchy foods actually produces a highly carcinogenic chemical called acrylamide, which is known to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently limits the amount of acrylamide permissible in public drinking water but it does not regulate levels permissible in our food. French fries and potato chips have acrylamide levels several hundred times higher than the EPA allows in drinking water. Yet most consumers have no idea that the process of cooking actually creates health risks.
On June 25, 2002, the World Health Organization (WHO) began a three-day emergency meeting in Geneva to evaluate the recent discovery that certain popular starchy foods, such as potato chips and bread, contain a chemical that can cause cancer (ABC News, 6/25/02). Never before has the agency assembled so many experts so quickly to evaluate food safety. Jorgen Schlundt, head of WHO's Food Safety Program, told ABC NEWS' John McKenzie: "This is not just another food scare. This is an issue where we find a substance in foods that could cause cancer, and in significant amounts."
Alarms were triggered in April 2002 with the announcement that scientists in Sweden had tested more than 100 food items and discovered that potato and cereal products that were fried, oven-baked and deep-fried may contain high levels of acrylamide, a chemical used to make plastics and dyes that has caused cancer in animals. "It did come as a surprise because it has not been considered as a normal process that you would get acrylamide out of food," said Schlundt. Researchers say it is all about heat. The higher the cooking temperature is, the greater the level of acrylamide. Some researchers blame the acrylamide on the oil present in the starchy foods.
Bread was found to contain 50 micrograms of acrylamide. Cereals, cookies & crackers and potato chips contained 160, 410, and 1,200, respectively. Since the Swedish study, scientists in several other European countries have tested many of these popular foods with similar results.
If you need yet another reason to pass on the potato chips, now you've
got it.