Lynn Capehart Wellness Project

CHARRED FOOD IS BURNED FOOD AND EVERY BITE IS FULL OF CANCER CAUSING FREE RADICALS

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UPDATE:

The following blog was posted on April 8, 2018. Two months later in its June 4, 2018 issue, TIME magazine ran a piece titled “Four Healthier Ways to Grill” for the summer. The article states, “Cooking most meat at temperatures above 300F can produce potentially cancer-causing chemicals called heterocyclic amines (HCAs)…. In addition to being carcinogenic, some of the toxins produced by grilling meat may also increase your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes…. They do so by interfering with processes that regulate inflammation and insulin sensitivity…. Research has linked high-heat cooking to an increased risk of [these diseases]. To limit your exposure (to HCAs), avoid cooking meats until charred or very well done.” (p. 70)

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Agreement is the glue that holds together our reality. If you don’t believe me, just think about this: Let’s say you are at a really cool party, dressed to the nines, drinking your fancy sex-on-the-beach cocktail, munching on fancy bruschetta crostini appetizers, when suddenly a naked man streaks through the room. The first thing you would do is turn to the person nearest you and blurt in a raised voice, “Did you see that naked man?”

If the people in the room all said they didn’t know what you were talking about and started to look at you strangely, like maybe there was something wrong with you, you would doubt your own perception. Only after you obtained a substantial amount of agreement from others would you believe your own eyes.

There have been countless scientific experiments on this aspect of needing the agreement of others before we can believe anything for sure. And the more people who will agree with you, the stronger is your own belief. This happens everywhere, from entertainment to politics to the newest food craze, like burning food and calling it charred, something to be sought after and not shunned.

Marketers depend on the power of agreement, our need to always be part of a consensus. They work hard to reach a tipping point where enough people agree on their product so as to cause the rest of us to rush in and partake. Because after all, if so many people think something is good then it must be good, right?

Agreement is why we are so happy nowadays when a restaurant kitchen sends us burned food. Ah, we feel so cutting edge as we eat the latest advancement in culinary arts. But not too long ago, those plates of not-to-be-eaten char would have been sent back to the kitchen accompanied by much indignation that such was put before you, that you had been so disrespected.

If you left a cut avocado on a counter and noticed days later that it was gnarly black and rotted, would you clap your hands with delight and dig in? No, of course not. You would throw it in the trash, because it was not fit to eat. The same is true for charred food. I’m not talking about “blackened” food where black pepper and herbs are used to simulate a char. I’m talking about burned food. Food that has been cooked too long past its optimal point.

I visited New York City a while ago, all aflutter to have a slice of bona fide New York pizza like I enjoyed regularly while in college. I couldn’t find it anywhere in the mom and pop stores like before. Instead, everywhere I went I was served pizza with a black burned crust and black edges.

In fact, the closest I have come to New York pizza in years was in Las Vegas in a place that rightfully calls itself New York Pizza. (For anyone visiting the Strip who is hankering for a slice of genuine New York Style pizza, take Sahara west, away from the Strip, and make a right turn on Torrey Pines Drive. It’s down about five minutes on the left, in a tiny strip mall across from the Walmart.)

You could teach a chimpanzee to recognize that food is done when it turns black. But it takes finesse and training to be able to get a good sear on a steak or a nicely browned pizza crust just right and know when to remove it from the heat, before it is burned black.

Any kitchen neophyte knows a food is done once it turns black around the edges. Black is not a color you want on your cooked food. It’s a thin line between dark sear and burned food, but if you’ve graduated from a culinary school, or work in a professional kitchen, the least we can expect of your talent and training is that you be able to tell the difference. That food is being burned on purpose as a new culinary technique is unconscionable.

Free radicals are produced constantly in your body by the most innocent of acts. Cells are damaged and free radicals created (a) naturally, as a result of metabolism, but also from (b) irritation, like that from a tight bracelet that leaves the skin red and tender, (c) injury, like banging your shin as you get out of your car, causing a bruise, (d) infection, anywhere in the body, (e) toxins, like air pollution and radiation that bombard first responders, (f) poor diet, insufficient in antioxidants to control and neutralize free radicals, (g) other stressors specific to an individual, and of course, (h) eating burned food.

Free radicals are the cause of all inflammatory diseases, including cancer. If the word “inflammation” is used to describe any disorder, then you know it is caused by an excess of free radicals. The mere act of living causes free radicals, so it is not smart to add to the load with which you already have to deal.

If a cell is damaged so as to cause the married electrons inside to migrate outside the cell, they immediately become single electrons. Single electron is another name for free radical. The first thing a single electron does is attack the nearest healthy cell in an attempt to obtain another electron and return itself to healthy status. All it does is damage that cell and create two more single electrons, aka, free radicals.

This is the process, the exponential growth of free radicals, that leads to oxidation, inflammation, and finally cancer and all other inflammatory diseases. The last thing that you want to do is eat burned food and add to that load. Do yourself a favor, send that plate of burned food back to the kitchen with plenty of indignation. To learn more about inflammation, check out Blog 3: The Danger of Inflammation. https://lynncapehartwellness.com/2011/01/23/blog-3-the-danger-of-inflammation/

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