Health while grilling Can you also eat the black meat or meat?

Carcinogenic? May burned grilled food really not be consumed?
Even if the weather does not play every day, the barbecue season has already started. When sharing BBQ with friends often tips are exchanged how and what is best grilled. Health aspects are usually not in the foreground. Grill friends should pay a lot of attention here. For example, burnt food should no longer be consumed.

Minimize health risks when grilling
Summertime is barbecue season: Hardly anything is so popular among the citizens, as in sociable round sausages, meat, fish or even vegetarian to put on the grid. Grill fans can spend hours exchanging ideas about how it tastes especially good on the grill. Safety and health aspects, however, are less frequently addressed. But such topics are of great importance. For example, it can happen through misadventures that carcinogenic substances are produced on the grill food. Some tips and tricks can help minimize the risks.

During a social gathering, it can quickly happen that the sausage on the grill turns black. Health experts warn against eating charred grilled food. This contains carcinogenic substances. (Image: Daxiao Productions / fotolia.com)

Do not eat charred food anymore
If you are engrossed in a conversation while barbecuing with friends and are not paying attention, it can happen that the food on the grill becomes black. What should you do with it? Let charred meat still be eaten?

Health experts say no: "Stay away from seared steaks and charred sausages," warns the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) on its website.

Strong heat during grilling produces substances that do not bode well: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAA).

"The heterocyclic aromatic amines produced during grilling or frying significantly increase the risk of developing certain tissue changes in the colon," it continues. These polyps, also called Ademone, are often precursors for colorectal cancer.

When fat drips into the embers
In a study of the DKFZ with 4,484 subjects confirmed a clear correlation between the preference for roast and the frequency of adenomas, according to the researchers.

It should also be remembered when grilling, "that heterocyclic aromatic amines are only part of the poison cocktail that can arise in meat and sausages," the scientists said.

For example, carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) may form when fat from meat and fish or oil from the marinade drips into the embers.

Use of barbecue bowls
In order to avoid the formation of PAHs, as little fat and oil as possible should drip into the embers. "A simple solution is the use of grill trays, in which the liquids are collected directly from the food to be grilled," writes the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR).

But here too, there is a lot to consider. According to the experts, the use of aluminum trays or foils is acceptable when grilling meat, but acidic and salty foods should not come into contact with aluminum as the metal dissolves under the influence of acid or salt and can migrate into the food.

As an alternative to the poisonous aluminum foils offer bowls made of stainless steel or enamel, which can be easily cleaned after use in the dishwasher.

In order to prevent the formation of PAH, it should also be avoided to extinguish grilled meat with beer.

Reduce cancer pollutants
There are even more tips and tricks to make the BBQ without cancer pollutants. So grill food should not be cooked too long and not too low over the embers.

The consumer information service aid recommends that the distance should be at least a hand's breadth and that the food should only be grilled as long and as much as necessary.

In addition, it is possible to reduce the amount of cancerous substances when grilling by using the leanest possible meat and dabbing the fat on it with kitchen paper before grilling.

More and more people are now also using gas and electric grills where the food does not come into direct contact with flames. However, it is not clear whether these variants are beneficial in terms of health risks.

Cured and smoked foods do not rust
Barbecues should do without some foods. The Federal Center for Nutrition (BZfE) writes on its website: "Cooked or smoked foods should not be cooked on the grill."

Because "cured meat products such as pork chops, Wiener sausages, meat sausages or Leberkäse contain nitrite pickling salt, which can react at high temperatures with the proteins in the food to nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are considered carcinogenic ".

Who wants to play it safe, should therefore put on roast or grill sausages that do not contain pickling salt.

Smoked foods normally contain organic combustion pollutants from the smoke, which should not be increased further, as a result of the smoking process.

Tasty vegetarian alternatives
Those who prefer alternative grilling with vegetables and tofu instead of meat and sausage, should also follow some tips.

So you should salt vegetables such as peppers, mushrooms or leeks better after grilling, otherwise it loses too much water and is very soft.

And vegetarian meat substitutes like tofu sausages should not be placed in the middle of the grill as they are more heat sensitive. (Ad)