A healthy balanced diet is low in acrylamide anyway.īut if you think about someone who has a poor diet, for example, a student who relies on the local chipper for lunch and dinner and maybe smokes as well (also a source of acrylamide), they should consider making changes to their diet for a whole range of health reasons and exposure to acrylamide is just one of them. Actually, I love cake and chocolate!īut the point is, in the context of a healthy diet, the tiny amount of acrylamide that may be in a slice of toast or roast potato isn’t going to make inroads into your health prospects. Me, I have no intention of doing so as I enjoy all of the above! But then again, I have a healthy balanced diet and eat fruit, vegetables, lean meat, fish, wholemeal bread and also enjoy the odd cake. If you want to give up coffee, toast, roast potatoes, biscuits and a whole long list of other foods, you can if you want to. If this sounds a little vague, it’s because we’re uncertain about the evidence while still having to be cautious based on what that evidence is actually telling us! But that doesn’t mean cutting out toast or enjoying a roast potato. The general message from the experts is that we should reduce the amount of acrylamide in our diet. But since we know it causes cancer in lab animals, there’s a possibility that it may contribute to development of cancer in people over a lifetime. Can I eat toast or a roast potato again?įirst things first – there is no hard evidence that acrylamide causes cancer in people. When they looked at the amount of acrylamide we eat in our diets, they were concerned that while these levels were smaller than the levels that caused cancer in lab animals, they were still too close for comfort. Or to put it another way, what levels of acrylamide in food pose a health concern for people? To answer this, both the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) looked at the data. French fries and crisps had the highest levels of acrylamide, and it also formed in toast and was found in coffee as well. In 2002, researchers in Sweden had one of those 'Ah hah' moments when they discovered acrylamide can actually be formed in some foods, particularly starchy foods, under certain cooking conditions such as frying, baking, or roasting. By itself, it’s a toxic chemical that has been shown to cause cancer and damage the nervous system in laboratory animals, although this was at relatively high and continuous doses. Quite simply, acrylamide is a chemical used in a range of industries such as paper, dyes, plastics, and in water/wastewater treatment. First, the science bit! So what is acrylamide? A good example of this is the news reports this week about something called acrylamide and food like burnt toast. When we’re not quite sure what a 'safe' level is or how dangerous a chemical can be is when problems arise. a chemical that’s not supposed to be there), we have a fair idea of 'how much is too much,' or to put it another way, how much we can eat or drink without damaging our health. With most contaminant chemicals found in food (i.e. This is generally a good thing as it helps ensure food is kept safe, all the way from producer to our plates. With advances in technology, we’re now able to detect really tiny levels of chemicals in just about anything, including our food. By James McIntosh, Chief Specialist in Toxicology at safefood.

Burnt toast