Hey, do you know what’s in those fries and chips? Besides not being a nutritious food there’s a substance called acrylamide, known to cause cancer in lab rats. Acrylamide is not put into food, but is formed when starchy food is heated at high temperatures.

Acrylamide is in our popular American brands of French fries and snack chips that the California Attorney General feels should be disclosed to consumers. The battle pits the activist attorney general of California against the food industry and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Swedish scientists in 2002 first discovered the cancer-causing chemical in certain fried and baked starchy foods. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) tests included several popular brands of snack chips, taco shells, French fries, and breakfast cereals—the kinds of foods that were initially shown to have some of the highest acrylamide levels.

Fast-food French fries showed the highest levels of acrylamide among the foods tested, with large orders containing 39 to 82 micrograms. It is said, the amount of acrylamide in a large order of fast-food French fries is at least 300 times more than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows in a glass of water!

"The FDA has been strangely silent about acrylamide," CSPI’s executive director Michael F. Jacobson said. "It should be advising consumers to avoid or cut back on the most contaminated and least nutritious foods while more testing is done across the food supply. The FDA also should be intensively investigating ways of preventing the formation of this carcinogen."

My hope is that in the near future this could have a huge bearing on the eating habits of Americans and may make a dent in the bottom lines of restaurants and food companies. One more reason Americans need to take charge of their own health!

Copyright 2005 Leslie Freude. All rights reserved.
Feel Good From the Inside Out
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