Grilling - help!

StormWarrior

Is grilling food bad for you? I've been reading about how it's carcinogenic and if you grill vegetables it makes them more sugary than if you had steamed them! Is this true? Is steaming better?

Mr Magnolia

Burnt/charred food is reported to be high in certain carcinogenics. I grill/bbq food when the weather permits and I don't allow a little charring to put me off.

I'll move this over to Nutrition and Diet where we may pick up some expert opinions.

g'em

StormWarrior wrote: »

Is grilling food bad for you? I've been reading about how it's carcinogenic and if you grill vegetables it makes them more sugary than if you had steamed them! Is this true? Is steaming better?

Steaming is ultimately better, but the furor surrounding grilling foods is sensationalist to say the least.

You'll hear acronyms like HCA's (heterocyclic amines) - carcinogenic compounds that are produced in meant during grilling - and PAH's (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) - caused by overheating fat and can drip onto other foods - but the reality is that unless you're charring your foods to withing microns of their molecular structure being destroyed there's very little to worry about. From what I know (and I stand to be corrected here) the only association made has been with pancreatic cancer [see: Anderson et al. (2002) Meat intake and cooking techniques: associations with pancreatic cancer. Mutation Research/Fundamental and Molecular Mechanisms of Mutagenesis, Volumes 506-507, p. 225-231]

rubadub

If you didn't eat anything rumoured to be carcinogenic you would die of starvation!

Dunno about grilling & sugars, probably caramelizing them or something. Grilling will increase water loss so your foods will be higher in sugar than steamed as a percentage.

I remember reading some McCains chips, the nutiritional info had values for oven baked, grilling, & deep frying. Surprisingly the oven baked had more calories per 100g than the deep fried. I figure this is since all the water was driven off during baking, so lowering their weight. e.g. 100g frozen chips might be 80g when deep fried, but 50g when baked.

corkcomp

rubadub wrote: »

If you didn't eat anything rumoured to be carcinogenic you would die of starvation!

+1

StormWarrior

So if I want to eat grilled chicken every day, that's OK, I'm not seriously damaging my health? And about grilled veg being higher in sugar, if I want to lose a few pounds of weight grilling the veg and making it higher in sugar that way won't thwart my weight loss plans? (Obviously only grilling one or 2 bits of veg a day, I know you should have some raw stuff too.)

As far as grilling the chicken goes, if I tear off the burnt lines will the rest of it be ok?

corkcomp

StormWarrior wrote: »

So if I want to eat grilled chicken every day, that's OK, I'm not seriously damaging my health? And about grilled veg being higher in sugar, if I want to lose a few pounds of weight grilling the veg and making it higher in sugar that way won't thwart my weight loss plans? (Obviously only grilling one or 2 bits of veg a day, I know you should have some raw stuff too.)

As far as grilling the chicken goes, if I tear off the burnt lines will the rest of it be ok?

you are worried about the sugar content of veg and whether grilled chicken could be damaging to your health? i presume your taking the p yes??

StormWarrior

No, I have candida and have been advised to avoid high sugar food, even fruit.

rubadub

StormWarrior wrote: »

No, I have candida and have been advised to avoid high sugar food, even fruit.

Did you read about the sugar online? if so post the link. A lot are written by sensationalists with the aim of shocking people. Do you have a recommended daily intake of sugar?

Perhaps some carbs in the veg do turn to sugar, it is probably still a minimal amount.

Fruit is high in sugar, grapes have about ~50% more sugar per weight than coke or other soft drinks. Apples & oranges are around 10-12% sugar, Bananas are ~20% sugar, grapes 14-16%

StormWarrior

No, I've been seeing a homeopath. She did some tests on me and told me to stay away from all sugar including fruit.

rubadub

StormWarrior wrote: »

No, I've been seeing a homeopath. She did some tests on me and told me to stay away from all sugar including fruit.

Right well fruit is high in sugar like I said. But in the first post you said you heard grilling veg made them sugary, did the homeopath warn you about this? if so did she give any indication how much is OK?

You can simply look up your particular veg to see how much natural sugar is in it, some would be lower than others. Somebody might know a good diabetics website that probably has them listed. Wikipedia tend to list the values in a box on the right of the page. I see tomatoes are 2.6% sugar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato while carrots are 5% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrots

BUT take into account portions, tomatoes are very watery, it would be easier to eat 200g of tomatoes than 200g carrots.

StormWarrior

She didn't say anything about vegetables, well except that I'm apparently sensitive to peppers.

If you steam chicken, does the fat drip out of the chicken into the pot? So it's just as low-fat as grilling?

corkcomp

hang on .. so the (miniscule) bit of fat the chicken contains is a prob now too?? I remember seeing some of your posts pop up over the past few months and based on the stats you have given us re duration / intensity of exercise you do and your (pretty restricitive) diet i have one piece of advice .. DONT obsess over diet / fitness, you are NOT OVERWEIGHT, based on stats you gave in one of your previous posts you have a very HEALTHY BMI of 21.5 !!!.. Please make sure you are taking in enough calories to fuel any strenuous activities as you will place your body under a lot of stress otherwise .. some of your posts below are a bit worring TBH

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055301100

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055385521

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055365132

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055382015