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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2009 - 5:58:43 PM |
Editor's note:
Heterocyclic amines are recognized human carcinogens that are formed during the cooking of meat, particularly at high temperature. When meat or protein-rich foods get brown, chances are good that the foods contain some heterocyclic amines.
Modern methods of raising animals for food have made matters even worse
for meat-eaters. Antibiotics, hormones, heavy metals, dioxins, and
various other compounds are raising the risk of cancer.
Because chickens are raised in such crowded and
unhealthy conditions, they are very susceptible to disease, so in an
attempt to keep them alive through conditions that would otherwise kill
them, farmers feed them an array of antibiotics, including one that
contains the most toxic form of arsenic. A report from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture-published in
Environmental Health Perspectives
in January 2004-revealed that chicken contains three to four times more
potentially poisonous arsenic than other poultry and meats. Eating a
typical 2 ounces of chicken a day means ingesting 3.6 to 5.2 micrograms
of cancer-causing arsenic.
And arsenic isn't the only thing you need to worry
about the next time someone offers you a chicken leg. More than 95
percent of our exposure to dioxin, a well-known carcinogen, comes from
eating animal products (the rest is environmental; none comes from
vegan foods). Researchers with the Institute of Medicine have even
recommended that school cafeterias offer more foods that are low in
animal fat so that children aren't exposed to unhealthy levels of
dioxins, dangerous byproducts of industrial and natural combustion that
can accumulate in body fat. According to Michael Taylor of Resources
for the Future, "The most direct way to reduce dietary exposure to
dioxins is to reduce consumption of animal fat." Remember, more than
half the calories of even the leanest chicken comes from fat.
Fish, in addition to containing concentrated (and
carcinogenic) animal protein, is often very high in environmental
contaminants. Fish commonly contains mercury, dioxins, polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs), and other organochlorine pesticides. These
contaminants, which have been linked to cancer and other health
problems, tend to accumulate in body fat and remain in the body for
decades.
In fact, 80 to 90 percent of dietary pesticide
exposure, as well as 100 percent of dietary hormone and dioxin
exposure, comes from eating animal products, and many of these
chemicals are known to cause cancer in human beings.
Finally, additional carcinogens form when meat is cooked. These cancer-causing chemicals, specifically called
heterocyclic amines,
are found in cooked red and white meats, including fish and poultry. In
fact, the amount found in grilled chicken is 15 times higher than in
hamburger or steak.
By peta.org
© 2004-2008 by foodconsumer.org unless otherwise specified
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