Healthy Grilling on Barbecue Islands
For many years people have been sharing the meals with each other in the beautiful outdoors. Food cooked on grills just tastes better, and there is something cozy about sitting around a warm fire with family and friends. In recent years however, as people become increasingly more health conscious, questions have been raised about the links to grilling meat and various forms of cancer, most commonly colon and breast cancer. It is when the protein in meat heats up, carcinogens get released.
Some people have thought that this occurs only when the meat is charred and that by scraping off that char, they would be removing those carcinogens, but this is not true. Once they are there they cannot be removed. However, there are many ways in which one can go about not having them occur in the first place. One thing that scientists have discovered is that when grilling hamburgers, flip them often. By grilling over low heat and flipping the burgers each minute or so, the levels of the chemicals fall drastically.
Marinades play a large role in reducing the chemicals as well. It is best to water down thick, store packaged marinates, as using them full strength will many times serve to triple the levels. If one mixes just half a cup of soy protein into the meat, this will lower the toxicity levels by ninety five percent. Another item one can add to ground meat to lower the HCAs is vitamin E. Just one capsule from the vitamin bottle mixed in will lower the levels more that seventy percent.
And while some may not find this particular taste appealing, mixing in a cup of the dark antioxidant rich fruits such as blueberries or cherries into a pound of hamburger, more than ninety percent of the levels will be suppressed. These fruit burgers may not be all that for many people, so garlic, sage, and rosemary are a tasty alternative, and again the levels of the chemical carcinogens will be reduced when these herbs are added into the mix. Barbecue islands in outdoor kitchens have made these preparations easy and quick. It just takes a little bit of work to make the cooked meat safe, work that results in more savory grilled foods anyway.
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