Reducing Carcinogen Levels in Grilled Chicken

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MARINATING REDUCES LEVELS OF CARCINOGENS IN GRILLED CHICKEN

SAN FRANCISCO, April 17 - When you fire up your grill for a barbecue this season, you may want to make sure to marinate your chicken first. According to work being presented here at the American Chemical Society national meeting by Mark Knize of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, marinating chicken before it's grilled reduces the levels of some potentially cancer-causing compounds formed while cooking.

The production of heterocyclic aromatic amines from the cooking of muscle meats has been known for some time. Previous research has shown that these compounds can cause cancer in monkeys and rats and are suspected to cause cancer in humans. Partly due to a popular belief that chicken is a healthier alternative to beef, chicken consumption has increased in recent years. However, research by this group and the National Cancer Institute in 1995 showed that cooked chicken can also contain high levels of certain heterocyclic aromatic amines.

Knize and his group compared the amount of two such compounds, MeIQx and PhIP, in marinated and unmarinated chicken breast meat flame-cooked on a propane barbecue grill. These compounds are commonly found in cooked meats such as steaks, hamburgers and bacon. Knize's group measured the amount of MeIQx and PhIP present at 10, 20, 30 and 40 minutes of grilling time. Compared to unmarinated controls, a 92-99% decrease in PhIP was observed in a whole chicken breast marinated in brown sugar, olive oil, cider vinegar, garlic, mustard, lemon juice and salt. Although MeIQx levels increased using the same marinade, the increase was insignificant compared to PhIP levels without the marinade and was only observed at the 30 and 40 minute cooking times. Overall, marinating greatly reduces the total amount of detectable heterocyclic amines, and grilling just under 30 minutes is ample for eliminating any microbial threats from undercooked chicken, says Knize.

The research team also looked at the effects of cooking conditions on heterocyclic aromatic amine formation. These included the position of the chicken on the grill, the use of fresh versus previously frozen chicken, and the length of exposure to the marinade. The team found only small differences in heterocyclic amine levels due to different grilling positions, and frozen chicken samples yielded levels similar to those of fresh chicken. The results were also similar for chicken samples marinated for 4, 24, and 48 hours, as well as chicken dipped in marinade just before grilling.

This work was funded by the National Cancer Institute.

AGFD 179 will be presented at 10:30 a.m., Thurs., April 17, in Continental 3, Ballroom Level, San Francisco Hilton. The national meeting of the American Chemical Society will be held in San Francisco April 13-17. This paper is among the 7,700 presentations that will be made.

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