Hot Dogs Better Than Rotisserie Chicken

Researchers at the Kanas State University Research have found that hot dogs, pepperoni and deli meats are relatively free of carcinogenic compounds. Scientists were studying the level of heterocyclic amines (HCA) in ready-to-eat meat products like beef hot dogs, beef-pork-turkey hot dogs, deli roast beef, deli ham, deli turkey, fully cooked bacon, pepperoni and rotisserie chicken. HCA's are carcinogenic compounds found in meat that is fried, grilled or cooked at high temperatures and previous studies have shown that humans who consume large amounts of HCA's are at an increased risk of stomach, colon and breast cancers. Results showed that pepperoni had the least HCA content (0.05ng/g) followed by hot dogs and deli meat (0.5ng/g).Thus the researchers concluded that consuming ready-to-eat meat products contributes very low level of HCA intake. But fully cooked bacon (HCA content-1.1ng/g) and rotisserie chicken meat (1.9ng/g) had significantly higher HCA levels.

Higher water content in ready-to-eat products was the reasons for lower HCA content. More moisture prevents the formation of many HCA's. Similarly cooking at low temperatures might reduce the HCA level.


Source-Medindia