Healthy Grilling

After a long summer day at the beach or pool, you crave a dinner that’s simple, summery, sumptuous, and easy to cook. Grilling meets all of those criteria. But grilling can raise the risk of some forms of cancer, including breast, stomach, and colorectal cancer. When meat is cooked at high temperatures, as it is during grilling and broiling, a compound in the muscle tissue of meats known as creatine reacts with amino acids and produces carcinogenic compounds.

Fortunately, scientists have discovered an easy, delicious way to cut down on those carcinogenic compounds, which are called heterocyclic amines (HCAs): use marinades. Several recent studies have shown that marinating meats before grilling can actually reduce the amount of HCAs, according to the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR).

Make mine with marinade
How would a bit of marinade stop carcinogens from forming? Researchers aren’t completely sure, but they suspect that the antioxidant compounds found in marinades are responsible for protecting against HCA formation. Most marinades contain a mix of acidic ingredients such as vinegar, wine, or citrus juice; oil; and flavorings such as herbs or spices. Antioxidants abound in many of these ingredients, including citrus juices, wine, oils, garlic, onion, chives, turmeric, and herbs such as thyme, oregano, and rosemary.

In repeated studies, researchers marinated beef, pork, chicken, and fish for varying amounts of time before grilling. After cooking, they measured the HCAs on the grilled foods, and found that marinating reduced HCAs by as much as 99 percent. Time spent in the marinade didn’t make a difference: 40 minutes of marinating proved as effective as two days’ worth.

“Marinades may be the single most effective way of reducing the formation of cancer-causing substances created during grilling,” says Melanie Polk, R.D., Director of Nutrition Education at the AICR. And as every cook knows, marinades also tenderize meat and improve its flavor.

Other smart choices Of course, there are other ways to cook meat healthfully. For example, poaching, baking, braising, and stir-frying meat not only prevents carcinogen formation, but also saves calories. For example, a broiled chicken drumstick has only 75 calories, compared with 195 calories for a drumstick that’s breaded and deep-fried.

Even if you do marinate meats, you don’t completely eliminate cancer risk. When fat drips from the meat onto hot coals, carcinogens are formed and are deposited on food by smoke or flame-ups that char and blacken it. However, you can reduce these carcinogens by minimizing the amount of fat that drips onto the coals.

The AICR offers these precautions for marinating and grilling meats:

• Choose lean cuts of meat, such as chicken breasts, rather than fatty meats, such as sausages. The leaner the meat, the less fat that drips onto the coals.
• Trim all visible fat and remove skin from meats before cooking.
• When marinating meat, use minimal amounts of oil and sweetener, because they tend to increase carcinogen-carrying smoke. Before placing marinated meat on the grill to cook, use a paper towel to remove excess marinade and reduce flame-ups.
• Use tongs or a spatula to turn food rather than a fork, which releases juices when it pierces the meat.
• Use about 1/2 cup of marinade for every pound of meat. It’s not necessary to immerse food completely as long as you turn the food occasionally to ensure full coverage.
• To make cleanup easier, marinate meat in a thick, resealable plastic bag. Don’t use metal and other reactive bowls for marinating.
• Refrigerate meats while they marinate.
• Add even more antioxidants—and flavor—to your meal by grilling vegetables with your meat. (Although vegetables gain flavor from marinade, it’s not necessary to marinate them for carcinogen protection—vegetables don’t form HCAs when grilled.)
• After you remove the meat from the marinade, discard the marinade or, if you’d like to baste the grilling meat with it or serve it at the table with the cooked meat, boil it to kill bacteria that may have been left behind by the raw meat. Or, double your marinade recipe and set half aside before adding meat.
• Cook meats for as short a time as possible. Small chunks of meat such as those used for shish kebob cook faster than large cuts of meat.
• As meat cooks, turn it frequently to prevent charring.
• After meat is cooked, cut off charring that may have formed while cooking.