I’ve heard a rumor that eating charred hot dogs or hamburgers (or anything else) cooked on a charcoal grill (not a gas grill) can cause cancer. Apparently there is a chemical reaction that takes place when the meat is burned. Have you heard anything supporting this? –Chad, via e-mail
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Does barbecuing cause cancer? Let’s put it this way. Grilled meat contains known and suspected carcinogens. Whether it contains enough to significantly increase your risk of cancer hasn’t been firmly established. Grilling meat produces at least two types of potentially dangerous chemicals: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heterocyclic amines (HCAs). PAHs are products of imperfect combustion found in smoke and burned matter. No doubt about it, in large enough quantities they cause cancer in humans–to cite one famous example, scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps. In barbecue grills they’re commonly formed when dripping fat flares up, charring the underside of the meat. For that matter, you make PAHs when you burn a piece of toast.
HCAs, whose possible role in cancer was more recently discovered, are the result of reactions between chemicals in muscle meat produced by high heat or prolonged cooking. In contrast to PAHs, HCAs are found inside the meat, not just on the surface, and can’t be easily scraped or trimmed off. Also in contrast to PAHs, HCAs aren’t necessarily more likely to be produced during grilling–they can be created when cooking in an ordinary oven or frying pan if you turn the heat up high enough. Researchers have found that HCAs are potent carcinogens when fed to rodents, but the link to cancer in humans is less clear; the rodents get thousands of times the dose you get from the occasional grilled burger. I won’t bore you with the numbers, but in most of the epidemiological studies I’ve seen, the tests of statistical significance are barely out of the weeds.
