I find this whole response rather fascinating. The first link takes us to an article that tells us that aromatic hydrocarbons (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) exist in edible fats and then tells us how they extracted and measured them. They specifically referenced vegetable oils and agonized over the fact that there currently was no standarized method of measuring and reporting on them which the authors of the study were trying to correct. No mention was made in the abstract as to whether the oils were cooked or raw so I expect that these nasty little buggers are in raw fats as well as cooked, but this is just my speculation. Probably best to read the whole study to figure out if there is anything useful here. If it is only about vegetable oils, no problem for me, I don’t eat them as they are far from paleo.
That's just childish. Anybody who had even the slightest clue about polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(or heat-created toxins in general) would know that they are produced by heat - I suspect a pretense of ignorance here. Now, granted, it is very remotely possible to get raw meats contaminated by infinitely microscopic traces of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs) via air-pollution as PAHs are produced in cigarette-smoke and wildfires, but such incredibly rare contamination via air-pollution is insignificant compared to the large amounts of toxic PAHs generated by cooking/heating.
Also, I referenced that study re edible vegetable oils simply to illustrate that PAHs are even produced in isolated fats by heat. Case proven. Since animal fats are not known to be magically protected against the formation of toxins, it is rather dishonest to suggest that tallow or other animal fats are somehow uniquely immune.
Indeed, this link shows that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons can indeed be produced from fat:-
http://books.google.at/books?id=FFg88IaReBwC&pg=PA144&lpg=PA144&dq=Polycyclic+aromatic+hydrocarbons+are+also+produced+from+animal+fat&source=bl&ots=niNgn3uJrk&sig=Ldcz5LqaDpen58M1IwI5YoFsmWI&hl=de&ei=Ez0nTZ7WOYas8gPkj8yOAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Polycyclic%20aromatic%20hydrocarbons%20are%20also%20produced%20from%20animal%20fat&f=falseSo, Lex's 1st point is debunked.
The second link takes us to a Wikipedia entry telling us that the nasty Polycyclic aromatic Hydrocarbons (PHAs) exists in food “cooked at high temperature” ,(grilled, smoked, and BBQed were specifically mentioned) as well as crude oil, coal and other major food groups. So now at least we know that these nasty little buggers occur in burned meat and wood smoke used to smoke meats as well. When it comes to health hazards, however, they admit that it all depends. Some PAH’s are very toxic and some have no known health effects at all. No idea which ones are present on those BBQed ribs, but since I don’t know of anyone that has gotten sick, much less died eating smoked fish, grilled steak, or BBQed ribs, where the culprit was singled out to be PAH’s, I tend to think that compared to all the other hazards around us (being struck by lightning or hit by a bus, etc), these are probably rather inconsequential. Especially since no health risks could be demonstrated when eating grilled or smoked foods, only risks associated with gross environmental pollutants. Might I suggest that based on this article you might not want to live on top of a toxic waste dump.
Very foolish remark, of course, the above quoted claims. First of all, people do not die immediately after eating specific foods, no one ever suggested otherwise, that's just your absurd invention/exaggeration. The whole point re those studies on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons is that they contribute heavily to diseases like cancer etc. Also, it is moronic to suggest that something that is a well-known harmful industrial pollutant (like PAHs are) cannot be also harmful when produced by cooking foods, given the plentiful scientific evidence showing the harm done by PAHs in cooked foods/cooked meats:-
To give some idea of PAH exposure via food and negative health-effects:-
"4. The main source of exposure to PAHs for the adult is food, which contributed to more than 90% of total exposure.1,2 However for smokers, significant contribution of PAHs exposure may be attributed to cigarette smoking. The additional intake of one of the PAHs, benzo[a]pyrene, for a person smoking 20 cigarettes per day was estimated to be 210 ng, which is in the same order of magnitude of the mean intake from food (the mean benzo[a]pyrene intake from food was about 110 ng per day).2,3 Other minor routes of exposure to PAHs are inhalation of polluted ambient and indoor air, ingestion of house dust, and dermal absorption from contaminated soil and water.1 " so, PAH intake comes 90 percent from (cooked) foods, not via air-pollution. Now, granted, microscopic amounts of PAHS even contaminate raw foods via air-pollution, but the primary intake of high amounts of PAHs comes only from cooking, according to the article further down.
http://www.cfs.gov.hk/english/programme/programme_rafs/programme_rafs_fc_01_06_pah.htmlThere are enough studies demonstrating that PAHS are harmful to human health, for it to be rather foolish to pretend that the PAHs in foods are somehow all of the nontoxic variety:-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20388572(the 1st link mentions benzopyrene, a PAH known to be of the toxic variety).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8224319http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19440493http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514270398/html/x203.html(The above link does not admit that one can reduce one's PAH intake in a number of ways by simply eating foods raw, not smoking either actively or passively, and by avoiding areas of urban air-pollution). And since PAH intake mostly comes into the body via (cooked)food, eating one's food raw makes a hell of a lot more sense.
Oh, and on a side-note, here's an obvious study:-
http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/4/519.short which shows that caloric restriction allows PAHs to be detoxed out of the body faster:-
http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/4/519.shortMakes sense, since reducing the intake of cooked/processed foods would naturally give the body fewer toxins per day so that it could deal with them more effectively.
[edit] " taken from:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycyclic_aromatic_hydrocarbon
The third PubMed link is the most interesting of all. It tells us well cooked beef has a high heterocyclic amine (HCA) content which appears to be different from PAHs though a PAH by any other name may be as aromatic (to butcher Shakespeare).
Irelevant comment, pure obfuscation.
Anyway, the abstract says some interesting things. First, they were looking to prove that eating cooked beef high in HCAs would cause tumors over the long term – long term being 12 weeks. The abstract says the beef was prepared using a ‘variety of methods’, and of course we have no idea what those methods were, or which method produced which result, but I think we can safely state that not all cooking methods created the same amount of HCA’s or they wouldn’t have needed said variety.
Correct(!). HCAs are formed in fewer amounts if the meat is marinated, for example. But to suggest by implication, that "fewer HCAs" in a particular food means that the food is healthy would, of course, be wholly misleading and dishonest. All one could state, with any honesty, is that some forms of cooking produce fewer HCAs, and are therefore "less worse/less unhealthy" than other forms of cooking.
They then stated that the cooked beef was “followed by various dietary regimens as a promotional stimuli”. Hmmmmm, you mean they tried to create an environment that was known to be conducive to the formation of tumors so that they could blame it on the HCAs? How could I possibly accuse them of that?
In the very next sentence of the abstract they talk about the fact that “high HCA diets produced tumors in all DMH-treated rats”. What a surprise, especially since DMH is the well known and very potent carcinogen, dimethylhydrazine.
I guess they couldn’t get the rats to cooperate and produce tumors on HCA’s alone so they had to add some of that “promotional stimuli” to assure a positive outcome. Why? Rats and mice have almost no spontaneous colon cancer. To test diets and agents which could prevent cancer, one needs animals with tumors. This is why rodents are given a carcinogen. Finally, the researchers were totally befuddled by the fact that they were thwarted in their attempts to produce tumors, no matter how high the HCA levels, and how much “promotional stimuli” was added when the diet was high in fat. Now they don’t specifically state which fats were tested, but you can bet that if they had gotten a positive outcome on any fat it would have been shouted to the rafters – especially if it was animal fat. Now isn’t one of the tenets of a paleo diet to be high in animal fat?
So, since rats have negligible, spontaneous colon cancer on any diet, the only way to determine a viable comparison with humans(who do get colon cancer) is to give them a cancer-causing chemical, and then practice various methods such as caloric restriction or adding in or removing toxic HCAs so as to see if these various methods increase or decrease the frequency or severity of the cancer. Rather logical, actually, in view of the current difficulty of getting humans to undergo long-term dietary experiments - I do rather wish the authorities would allow humans to be experimented on rather than animals so that science could advance at a faster rate. Perhaps we could introduce some sort of law allowing prisoners to cut their sentences by a number of years if they are willing to undergo such dietary etc. experiments. At any rate, that study was a poor one, I'll admit, but the rest online re AGEs/PAHs etc. are rather damning in total, I'm afraid.
Bottom line, don’t eat burned meat, don’t eat coal, don’t eat crude oil, don’t live on a toxic waste dump, (all containing PAHs), and don’t drink benzene or it’s derivatives (HCA’s).
Wrong, as I pointed out in previous segments re studies, most of the intake of such nasty chemicals comes NOT from toxic waste-dumps and the like, but mostly from eating cooked foods(and to smoking cigarettes, to a lesser extent, if one is a smoker). So, best to avoid all cooked foods, and eat plenty of raw meat, high in raw fat, but avoid those barbecues, Mcdonald's etc. etc.
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