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by rarrrrrr 3276 days ago
My CIA cookbook begins potato recipes with first blanching them in water prior to roasting, sauté, etc, which is apparently an effective mitigation.
2 comments

I was not aware of the existence of a Culinary Institute of America, and assumed it was the Central Intelligence Agency.

"Why would the CIA have a cookbook..?"

My understanding --- which is casual and mostly comes from Dave Arnold rants on Cooking Issues --- is that acrylamide is produced any time you brown a potato. So: you can eat boiled or mashed potatoes, sure, but if you roast them you're exposed.

This is equally true of meat, and other vegetables.

You essentially can't avoid acrylamide if you cook. Labeling it is silly.

Potatoes are worse than other foods because they have asparagine and starch together.

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/d...

So foods with less starch and/or less protein won't end up with as much acrylamide.

There's other carcinogens generated by high temperature cooking though, for example, https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/d...