Potato chips and french fries have some of the highest
levels of acrylamide, says Dr. Hensrud, but crispy oven - roasted potatoes also have a lot.
Acrylamide has been shown to cause cancer in lab animals, but we don't know what
levels of acrylamide exposures are dangerous for humans.
French fries, chips, cookies, crackers, and cereals tend to have some of the highest
levels of acrylamide, courtesy of the processing they've been put through.
** One Japanese study has shown higher
levels of acrylamide in asparagus based at 428 °F / 220 °C for 5 minutes.
Exposure to high
levels of acrylamide in the workplace via inhalation or the skin causes nerve damage.
Baking sweet potatoes at high temps like that causes them to blacken, the black contains high
levels of acrylamide which can cause cancer.
CEH has launched legal action against Walgreens and other companies for failing to warn consumers about the high
levels of acrylamide in their products.
Other animal crackers found by CEH to contain
levels of acrylamide requiring a warning under California law were: Barbara's (Weetabix) Snackimals Vanilla Cookies; Stauffer's Animal Crackers Original; Gold Emblem (a CVS store brand); Kirkland Signature organic (a Costco store brand); Mi - Del Gluten - free Arrowroot Cookies; Cookies Animalitos Galletas (La Moderna brand); and Galletas de Animalitos Con Betun brand.
Studies have shown that using different varieties of certain crops, changing temperatures of food storage and processing, and other food handling practices can lower
levels of acrylamide in food.
Last month, CEH reached a legal agreement with Cornfields Inc, a leading private label snack food maker, requiring the company to significantly reduce
the levels of acrylamide in its products.
The «whole grain» Walgreens Disney animal crackers had the highest
level of acrylamide out of twenty - two animal cracker brands CEH tested.
In 2002, Swedish researchers discovered high
levels of acrylamides in starchy foods.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) really has not acknowledged the negative impact of cancer - causing acrylamides, and food manufacturers, so far, are not putting warning labels on their products concerning
the levels of acrylamides, either.
Not exact matches
But again, the FDA says the
levels of the chemical in foods like fries or crackers are much lower than
acrylamide levels linked to cancer in animal studies.
In fact, you'd have to drink in thousands
of times the amount
of acrylamide in a cup
of coffee to get to those
levels.
In 2010, the Metzger Law Group filed suit against ready - to - drink coffee companies to require them to give consumers cancer hazard warnings regarding
acrylamide in coffee or to reduce the
acrylamide content
of their coffee products to safe
levels.
-- One
of those chemicals is
acrylamide, a byproduct
of roasting coffee beans that is present in high
levels in brewed coffee.
In pregnant women, higher
levels of dietary
acrylamide have been linked to reduced birth weight and head circumference, key indicators
of a child's future health.
Canadian Functional Technologies has developed a proprietary yeast strain that could cut the fermentation time
of acrylamide, reducing it to undetectable
levels within food.
In an open seminar at Rothamsted Research Centre last week, Professor Nigel Halford warned
of the impending burden EU regulation governing
acrylamide levels would have on food manufacturing.
Studies done with animals show that
acrylamide in the diet increases the risk
of developing several different types
of cancer, including stomach and colon cancer and don't get me started on the salt
levels.
If you want to minimize your exposure to dietary
acrylamide, you'll need to restrict your intake
of the above foods in order to stay well under the EPA reference dose maximum safety
level of 2 micrograms per kilogram
of body weight (or about 140 micrograms for a person weighing 150 pounds).
And, sorry french fry lovers... the highest
acrylamide levels have been measured in any type
of fried potatoes.
This also explains why
acrylamides are more harmful to animals that eat cooked food compared to humans... since humans have adapted some
level of tolerance to
acrylamides from eating a partial cooked diet for 100's
of thousands
of years, but animals have never historically adapted to a cooked food diet, and therefore, are more sensitive to
acrylamides.
Potato chips and french fries fried to a golden brown contain the highest
levels of nasty
acrylamides.
Over 95 %
of preschool aged children 2 - 4 years exceeded
levels for
acrylamide (a cooking byproduct found in processed foods like potato, tortilla chip and processed grains) and 10 % exceeded mercury
levels.
More than 95 percent
of preschool children exceeded non-cancer risk
levels for
acrylamide, a cooking byproduct often found in processed foods like potato and tortilla chips.
Palazoğlu TK, Savran D, Gökmen V. Effect
of cooking method (baking compared with frying) on
acrylamide level of potato chips.