“Don’t use garlic for cooking, it will cause cancer!”
Ms. Zhang is a housewife, her husband is an office worker, and she takes care of a pair of children at home. I spend a lot of time cooking. She has a habit of cooking, and she is always used to cooking the pot with garlic. A few days ago, she saw a small popular science video on the Internet, saying that garlic pot will produce carcinogens, and often using garlic in pot will cause cancer.
The expert’s words made Ms. Zhang very frightened. She had a cough recently. She hurriedly handed the child to her grandmother, and took a taxi by herself. Hospital. Unexpectedly, the chest CT showed that there was a ground glass nodule in the lower lobe of the left lung, and the possibility of lung cancer was considered.
The results of the examination made Ms. Zhang feel as desperate as falling into an ice cave. Could it really be that the lung cancer was caused by frying in a garlic soy pot? Is this a coincidence or a necessity?
One, garlic soy pot, can cause cancer?
It is a common practice for many families to use garlic soy saucepan. In the eyes of the person in charge, the dishes fried in garlic saucepan will be more fragrant. Some people on the Internet have mentioned that “garlic soy pot causes cancer”, mainly because acrylamide may be produced when garlic soy pot is cooked, and acrylamide is a Class 2A carcinogen. Therefore, it is deduced that the garlic soy pot is carcinogenic.
Really?
The formation of acrylamide is mainly from amino acids and sugars in food. In high temperature cooking, such as frying, grilling, baking, etc., the Medra reaction occurs caused. That is, high-carb, low-protein foods, including sweet potatoes, bread, potato chips, french fries and other foods, are likely to produce acrylamide when heated to 120°C.
The higher the temperature and the longer the heating time, the more acrylamide is formed. According to Wu Yongning from the National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, acrylamide is neurotoxic to any animal, and also has reproductive toxicity and carcinogenicity to animals. Based on pathological evidence, it is not clear that acrylamide is significantly associated with certain human tumors.
Second, the question is, can garlic still be used for cooking?
Garlic will turn slightly browned and sometimes “blackened” after frying, and a small amount of acrylamide will naturally be produced in the process. According to the measurement data in Hong Kong, it is found that the content of acrylamide in vegetables such as garlic and onion is about 200 micrograms/kg when they are stir-fried and roasted.
In accordance with the recommendations of the WHO Working Report on Food Contaminants, human intake of acrylamide is limited to 180 micrograms/kg. Taking a 50kg woman as an example, a daily intake of 9000 micrograms of acrylamide is within the safe range.
According to this data, even if you eat 1kg of fried garlic every day, it is very far away from the safe intake. So this little garlic is not “garlic”.
Professor Fan Zhihong from the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, School of Food Science, China Agricultural University said, “The dose is the toxicity”, and the size of the toxicity also depends Depends on how much you eat. Toxic food, just eat a few micrograms, will not cause harm to the body, and if the dose is increased, even if it is not toxic, it will damage the body if it exceeds the amount.
Third, these habits of cooking should really be paid attention to!
The possibility of carcinogenicity by using a garlic soy pot is very low. However, some wrong eating habits may inadvertently bury health “hidden dangers”. The World Cancer Research Fund once clearly pointed out that poor eating habits can lead to more than 30 types of cancers, and 1/3 of the patients who die from cancer every year are related to poor eating habits.
1. Put the water in the pot without draining the water
If the ingredients are not drained during cooking, they will splash violently at the moment of contact with the oil, which is not only possible When splashed on the skin, oil vaporizes quickly and becomes so many tiny particles that PM2.5 rises, and inhaling these particles is likely to cause lung damage.
Solution: When frying, use a hot pan with cold oil and high heat to fry quickly; you can also blanch the food to half-cooked before frying to reduce the time of high-temperature cooking.
2. Do not turn on the range hood or turn it off directly after cooking
When someone likes cooking , Turn on the range hood when you see smoke from the oil pan; some people like to turn off the range hood immediately after cooking. However, when the fumes are visible to the naked eye, the harmful substances are already volatilized in large quantities, so the hood should be turned on before firing; in addition, after cooking the vegetables, the fumes will not disperse immediately, and a small amount is still suspended in the air, which will still cause harmful substances. freed.
Solution: It is best to turn on the range hood before cooking, and after cooking, let the range hood continue to run for 3~5 minutes , to ensure that harmful gases are completely discharged.
3. Repeated use of oil
A lot of palmsSpoon people are reluctant to pour out the oil that has fried food, and use them as “cooked oil”. The oil used for frying or frying at high temperature, multiple times, if repeatedly heated at high temperature, is likely to produce Benzopyrene, aldehydes, heterocyclic compounds and other substances harmful to human body.
Solution: The leftover oil can be used for blanching vegetables or making soup. For example, vegetables should be blanched in boiling water and then cold-boiled. Cooked oil can be used; Use new oil first, but only put half of the usual amount. After using it for cooking, put the vegetables in, and then add half of the remaining oil.
4. Don’t brush the pot after cooking
Some people always have a problem when they cook multiple dishes. It will keep the base oil in the pan and continue to stir fry other dishes, which saves money and oil. However, if a seemingly clean pot is not thoroughly cleaned, the grease and food residue on the surface will be heated with high temperature, which may produce carcinogens such as benzopyrene.
Solution: After frying a dish every time, it is recommended to clean the pot with a cleaning tool before cooking the next dish again.
5. Put salt hard
Some families have a heavy taste in food, and the same dish may not only put salt, but also soy sauce and oyster sauce Wait for seasoning. Salt will reduce the protection of gastric mucosa, making it less protective of the gastric wall, making it easier for various harmful factors to act on the gastric wall and promoting the occurrence of gastric cancer.
Solution: According to the dietary guidelines for adults, the daily consumption should not exceed 6g. When cooking, try to choose a single condiment instead of repeating Too salty.
Food suspected of causing cancer does not necessarily lead to cancer. The factors causing cancer are related to many factors such as living habits, living environment, mentality and emotions. It needs to be viewed rationally, and don’t smell cancer.
References:
[1] “Garlic soy pot causes cancer, is it true?” Xinhuanet.2019-07-17
[2] “Is Acrylamide from Food Heating Harmful? “. China Consumer News. 2016-11-23
[3] “Garlic Soy Pot Causes Cancer? Expert: Can’t smell cancer and discoloration”. Xinhuanet.2018-09-14