Should potato chips and peanut butter come with a cancer warning?

Acrylamide is a chemical that can form in some foods during high-temperature cooking processes, such as frying, roasting, and baking.

This chemical is present in a wide range of everyday foods, such as fried potato products, coffee, biscuits, crackers and bread. It is naturally forming chemical produced when starchy foods are fried, baked, roasted or processed at temperatures above 120^oC.

Acrylamide is usually formed when sugars and amino acids react together when heated and is absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract when ingested. After ingestion it is easily metabolised by the body.

One of the by-products of this process, glycidamide is suspected of causing gene mutations and tumours, and acrylamide caused cancer in animals in studies where animals were exposed to acrylamide at very high doses. In 2010, the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) concluded that acrylamide is a human health concern, and suggested additional long-term studies.

For substances that are both mutagenic and carcinogenic, no limit value can be established up to which intake could be deemed to be safe. Substances of this kind in food should be reduced as far as possible. 

The FDA and Cancer.gov recommend to fry, roast or bake foods as little as possible to reduce the chance of acrylamide forming. Boiling, steaming, and microwaving food should be the preferred way to cook food as these methods appear to generate less harmful chemicals.

According to data provided by the FDA, French fries are the single biggest dietary contributor to an average American’s acrylamide load. It has been estimated that French fries account for nearly a quarter of all the acrylamide in our diets. But beware: switching to roasted or baked potatoes will not shield you from acrylamide, either. Both roasting and baking trigger the process that leads to the formation of acrylamide in potatoes. Steamed and boiled potatoes, in contrast, do not contain significant levels of this suspected human carcinogen.

Potato chips and French fries seem to contain the highest levels of acrylamide according to Cancer.gov, although when making these at home, storing the potatoes in the fridge has shown to reduce the amount of acrylamide formed.

Another great contributor to the intake of this chemical is present in a lot of American homes, that is the loved Peanut butter and also roasted and toasted nuts.

Some toasted and roasted nuts – such as many roasted almonds and peanuts – have been found to be a significant source of acrylamide. As most pea nut butters are made from roasted peanuts, also peanut butter tends to be high in acrylamide. If you are looking for a healthy alternative to roasted nuts, simply go for their raw counterparts. In addition to being virtually free of acrylamide, raw un-salted nuts won’t damage your heart with excess salt.

Acrylamide has been on the Proposition 65 list since 1990 but only recently has been investigated in food. According to an article in Capitol Alert, the California Chamber of Commerce has filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the state from putting a warning on food products containing the chemical acrylamide claiming that the mandatory Prop 65 warning would be false and misleading.

According to this Prop 65. The State of California maximum limit of acrylamide in potato chips based on 2009 CA attorney general settlement agreement is of 275 ppb. And it´s alarming that one of the almond butter tested by the Clean Label Project shows almost 8 times this concentration. FDA recommends but do not regulate how much acrylamide can be in the food. It’s our right as consumers to receive the information of the products that we take to our tables and to our homes, take the time to do your research and try to avoid this preparations in order to decrease your exposure to this harmful chemicals.

To learn more about acrylamide and Prop 65 visit Hazox Video.