Barbeque season looms, and with or without the appropriate weather, there’s a new ingredient that should grace the grill of every meat-eater with even the remotest interest in health: rosemary.
Family doctors may soon be giving cooking tips, if research appearing in one journal passes the taste-test. The Food Safety Consortium at Kansas State University has recommended grillers apply liberal rosemary to their meal, to break down the potentially carcinogenic substances that form in the meat as it is cooked.
While medical opinion has long advised against undercooking raw meat, it seems the other side of the patty is that heterocyclic amines, or HCAs, increase the cancer-causing compounds in meat cooked for longer periods at high temperature. To keep temperatures high, but lose the carcinogens, rosemary can be spread on the surface of grilled meat.
For anyone who doesn’t want a minty burger, that means buying tasteless, odourless rosemary extracts.
Rosemary has a high antioxidant content that potentially protects the pancreas, whatever else going to a barbeque might damage. GPs might still on occasion want to offer advice on the awesome fat content of a fry-up meal – but here’s one tip to ease the conscience.
About Greg Baxter
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