Simple way to prevent cancer: turn down the heat

Sadly, one in four deaths in the USA are from cancer.

The saying, "you are what you eat" rings true. It is generally accepted that diet is one of the major causes of human cancer. How you prepare your food plays a vital role.

Many love fried, baked, and barbecued foods. But there may be a less tasty side to these culinary delights: high temperature cooking methods may produce large amounts of cancer-producing compounds, aka carcinogens.

A Swedish report found that when starchy foods such as flour and potatoes are baked or fried at high temperatures, they produce the carcinogenic (i.e. cancer causing) chemical acrylamide. Acrylamide is not only a carcinogenic but a nerve-damaging, DNA damaging, neurological and reproductive damaging compound. Acrylamide forms as a result of unknown chemical reactions during high-temperature baking or frying. The fact that raw or even boiled potatoes test negative for the chemical proves this. Prolonged exposure to acrylamide has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals and may do the same in humans.

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