I had a BBQ today and there were burnt bits on the hot plate we put on there from onions or something. so I, loving burnt bits and all, scraped them off the hot plate and on to my plate. my dad then goes “Don’t eat that otherwise U’ll get cancer” I scoffed at the idea and ate them anyway. He probably wanted the burnt bits for himself. But just to make sure, is there any truth to what my dad said or is it just made up?
Also my brother says that onions are bad for dogs. Are they? If so, how come?
Burned bits and cancer: Haven’t heard that little urban legend before, but I think I can safely say it’s false. The burning is just oxidation turning the carbon a black color, nothing to be afraid of. Heck, I’ve eaten so much burned popcorn in my day I’d know first hand if it caused problems. 
Onions and dogs: Again, haven’t heard this, and I’m not sure on the truth of it. I know chocolate kills dogs, but onions are in no way related to chocolate. Honestly, I can’t imagine how onions could hurt a dog as long as the dog was getting a balanced diet in addition to them. Why a dog would want onions is beyond me, but my little Pembroke Welsh Corgi likes grapefruit, so dogs must have tastes in food like humans.
I think I’ve heard and/or read somewhere that burned food contains more “free radicals,” which mess with the body and can increase (to some extent) the risk of cancer. I don’t know a whole lot about it, but you’re probably relatively safe if you don’t take everything burnt to a crisp.
If carbon/charcoal is such a cancer risk, why is it that activated charcoal is one of the frontline methods of dealing with ingestion of a poison?
I love the burnt parts of just about anything, too… and people are always telling me that eating the burnt parts is bad for you… I’m with the OP!! Anyone have any solid evidence that our prediliction/fetish/odd taste is bad for you? (I’d love to show my fiancee that it is harmless, because she never lets me eat the crispy bits of anything, and that annoys me!)
Salivating whilst awaiting assistance…
Thankyou all 4 your advice!
well the same thing prepared in a different way may do different things. e.g Zinc is in throat lozenges to neutralise pain or something but I think if U burn zinc it emits Aresnic
Burning Zinc will never release Arsenic. Why? Arsenic is its own element. Burning something will not change which elements that substance contains.
whoops…My friend told me it was some kind of poisonous fumes…I just can’t remember at this moment…
I read the same thing…somewhere.
You’re not supposed to feed onions or anything in the onion family to dogs. I THINK that it thins their blood out too much. I’ll occasionally give the dogs the leftover stew, though, which has lots of onions in it.
While we wait for an expert opinion, I’ve always understood that it is burnt fat that is carcinogenic. Burnt blackened bacon is supposedly a very dangerous thing to eat and gnerally speaking any barbequed meat that is blackened and burnt, including hot dogs, is going to pass some serious carcinogens through your system. Burnt vegetables such as onions probably have a harmless carbon component.
When it comes to carbon I always remember the tribe in Asia that was found to have a high occurrence of nasty cancers on the skin of the stomach because, in cold weather, they used to carry small smouldering charcoal braziers under their robes to keep warm.
Almost all water purifying filters are just charcoal in a tube. So its quite safe.
Handy come on. think about it. We are not talking about charcoal, much less eating it.
I am amazed at how much ignorance can crop up. OP as a question. Other people have never heard of something which is widely known so they suspect it is an UL. NOBODY bothers in the least to find some credible information…
OK, so I will break ground here. I have heard several doctors explain that burnt foods do indeed increase the risk of getting cancer. That boiling foods is much healthier than frying or broiling because the temperature is lower. At high temps carcinogenic compounds are formed. It does not even have to be burnt, but they increase exponentially if burnt.
I did a NET search and found a ton of information explaining this. I am not going to attempt to write a paper on this so you can look it up yourselves.
The following was taken from http://www.infinitefaculty.org/sci/cr/crs/1997_02.txt
> I read a few posts here implying that burnt food is carcinogenic.
>Is there research on that?
Yes considerable animal data. On obvious early reference is “Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer”, National Academy Press, 1982, esp ch 13, “Mutagens in food” pp277-303. Pyrolysis of amino acids and fats lead to numerous (listed and referenced) aromatic and amine compounds. Mutagenic evidence was from rats, metabolizing cultured liver cells, and bacteria. Regarding the non burnt material on the pan, some studies indicated that temperatures of 68-190C, showed some generation of chemicals which were mutagenic. Ames
review article in Science (Sept 23, 1983, vol 221, No. 617, pp1256-1264) has 10 or so references on Cooked food as a source of carcinogens. But, he comes down firmly on the importance ot a diet filled with numerous anti-carcinogens
(anti-oxidant and phytochemical).
From: Henry McGrattan <hm@globalserve.net>
To: [CR Society]
Subject: Cancer from Burnt Food
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 08:12:03 -0800
Burnt foods can cause cancer, and they need not even be obviously burned.
One of the common carcinogens is nitrosamines. They can be produced by BBQ-ing meat. Charcoal broiled hamburger is tasty and seems normally prepared, but it has a high level of nitrosamines.
http://www.cyberspacehealthclinic.co.uk/ailments/cancer.htm
http://www.feelathome.de/news0500.htm
http://www.aicr.org/nnaug98.htm
It seems not only burnt food is bad but also smoke from the BBQ deposits carcinogenic compounds on the food.
Congratulations, sailor, for being the first person to actually address the OP using facts. However, you didn’t quite answer the question fully. The question was, more or less, “If I eat the burnt bits will I get cancer?”
You provide evidence that there are mutagens and carcinogens in burnt food. Of this there is no doubt. However, there are a lot of mutagens (things that are positive in an Ames test) and carcinogens (things that cause tumors in some experimental animal model) everywhere. To say that burnt food has more mutagens or carcinogens in it than unburned food is true but is not the same thing as saying that eating burned food will give you cancer. For that we have to look for evidence from epidemiological studies linking consumption of burned food to an increased risk of cancer. Can you find one?
Epidemiological evidence is the strongest we have for, for example, the association of mesothelioma with exposure of smokers to asbestos in shipyards, the association of lung cancer with cigarette smoking, and for the association of scrotal cancer with working as a chimney sweep (yes, soot is carcinogenic).
I couldn’t, in a quick search, find any reports about any association between burnt food and cancer in humans, but I did check nitrosamines and found that Straif and colleagues, studying “exposure to nitrosamines, carbon black, asbestos, and talc and mortality from stomach, lung, and laryngeal cancer in a cohort of rubber workers,” found that “Exposure to nitrosamines was not associated with mortality from stomach or lung cancer” and the “increased mortality from lung and stomach cancer among rubber workers is associated with exposure to asbestos and dust, respectively” (Am J Epidemiol 2000 Aug 15;152(4):297-306). Of course, neither this one study, nor any less than infinite number of studies, proves that you, or I, or Tomcat won’t get cancer from eating the burnt bits just as no epidemiological studies can prove that you, or I, or Tomcat will get lung cancer if we smoke three packs daily for the rest of our lives. These studies only establish probabilities based on our individual similarity to the subjects of the study (How similar are you, Tomcat, and I to the male German rubber workers studied by Straif?) Based on ALL the available evidence, it seems likely to me that “eating the burnt bits” can’t be any more dangerous than sitting around a campfire eating scorched smores and inhaling all those mutagens and carcinogens in the smoke.
But of course the real answer to the question “If I eat the burnt bits will I get cancer?” is the same as the answer to the question “If I don’t eat the burnt bits will I get cancer?” The answer to both questions is “Probably, if you live long enough.”
Yes, the Zinc fumes themselves are poisonous - no need for Arsenic to be stopping by. People who work around galvanization setups need to be careful of that.
I’d always heard that it was due to the lighter fluid, but I’ll take sailor’s and Yeah’s word for it. As for onions and dogs, they might not be bad for the dog, but they’re certainly bad for anyone around the dog… They get bad gas from eating onions.
As far as nitrosamines are concerned, they’ve been accused of being carcinogenic and nitrites and nitrates are found in cold cuts, such as ham and even bacon, which nitrites and nitrates are converted into nitrosamines in the body. I don’t know of any epidemologic studies establishing any links, but it has been suggested that taking vitamin C will prevent the nitrites in cold cuts from turning into nitrosamines in the body.
Any grilled meat will form carcinogenic amine compounds. Burnt meat will produce more of them. I think the name is heterocyclic amines, but I don’t remember exactly. Of course, eating such food once is not going to give you cancer. It’s the continual use and abuse that may do the trick. Take vitamin C.
barbitu8: “Of course, eating such food once is not going to give you cancer. It’s the continual use and abuse that may do the trick. Take vitamin C.”
Do you have any evidence (as opposed to theories) that taking vitamin C may prevent cancer in humans?
Onions are indeed bad for dogs, and even worse for cats.
Well, that something is carcinogenic does not mean it will give you cancer. It means it increases your chances of getting cancer. Every smoker who doesn’t want to quit has a story about “my uncle who smoked two packs a day and lived to be 95”. Burnt food is the same thing.