Are Cancer-Causing Food Contaminants Hiding in Your Everyday Meals?
You have done everything perfectly. You bought many things like organic spinach, the leanest cut of chicken, and logged every gram in your calorie-tracking app. You are ready to fire up the grill to get perfect, smoky charcoal. Do you think that you are preparing the perfect and healthy dinner? Is the food free from harmful contaminants? Do they not contain cancer-inducing chemicals?
What if the method you use to cook your โcleanโ food is creating harmful toxins that are invisible to your eyes? According to a recent study by the researchers at the Seoul National University of Science & Technology (SeoulTech), the answer might be an unsettling โyesโ for all the questions.ย This study highlights that everyday cooking processes, such as grilling, roasting, and frying, can generate Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs)
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons are the harmful ingredients present in the food. They are hydrophobic organic compounds. Though they do not usually appear on the nutrition label of any food products, they are frequently present in nutrient-dense foods like fruits, vegetables, and grilled meats.
These cancer-causing food contaminants enter the body through two main ways:
- Environmental Exposure: Air pollution and Soil pollution can affect the food crops.
- Thermal Processing: Smoking or grilling are the cooking methods that consume more heat and cause these chemicals to adhere to the surface of the food.
Many of the Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons are known as Carcinogens, and the risk factors are high. We all must know the amount ofย PAH substances present in the food that we eat. But finding it has been a slow and expensive process for researchers.
Food safety labs used conventional extraction methods. These methods were labor-intensive and used harsh chemicals. Ironically, these methods were creating more pollution. A SeoulTech team led by Professor Joon-Goo Lee applied an effective testing method with a tongue-twister: QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged, and Safe).
Think QuEChERS as upgrading from a dial-up internet connection to a fiber optic connection. It contains sample preparation, making it easier to separate harmful chemicals from the food substances.
Eight specific PAHs (including highly toxic ones like Benzo[a]pyrene) across various food textures and types were tested by the team. The method was not only faster but also incredibly precise.
- Accuracy: The calibration curves showed exceptional linearity ($R^2 > 0.99$).
- Recovery: The method was successfully able to recover between 86% and 109% of the contaminants.
- Precision: The testing revealed extremely low detection limits. This demonstrated that the method can detect even trace amounts of the PAHs.
You must be wondering, Why should you care about all these laboratory testing methods? You should care because efficient testing methods lead to safer supermarket shelves. When testing becomes cheaper, faster, and less toxic for lab workers, food safety agencies and manufacturers can test more samples more often. Prof. Joon-Goo Lee said that the research can improve public health by providing safe food. It also reduces the use and emission of hazardous chemicals in laboratory testing. This new approach makes a double win. One, it helps to ensure that the healthy grilled chicken and vegetables we eat are actually safe. Secondly, it reduces the chemical waste generated by the laboratory and protects the environment from pollution. This testing turns out the recipe for safer food that involves a little less heat in the kitchen and a lot more innovation in the lab.
