The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday reminded the public about the proper ways to barbecue over the holiday weekend.
The Mid-Autumn Festival began yesterday. The first day of the three-day weekend is traditionally when Taiwanese celebrate the holiday with barbecues.
The FDA said that cooking meat for too long would char it, producing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which increase the risk of cancer.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
FDA tests have shown that PAHs, which are suspected to cause cancer by damaging DNA, are produced in Taiwanese barbecues of meat, including sausages and offal, as well as tempura and bean curd, all of which produce high levels of PAHs when cooked at high temperature.
Consuming food containing PAHs would greatly increase the risk of skin, lung, stomach and liver cancer, the FDA said, urging the public not to overcook food.
The FDA has advised people to cut up larger meat portions before putting them on the grill.
Regarding the more difficult food to barbecue, the FDA added that people can first steam the food, broil it in a pan or wok, or use a microwave, and then place it on a grill for cooking, which would take much less time and would reduce the formation of harmful mutagenic chemicals.
It said tests on pork loin slices and other popular meat cuts for barbecuing had mostly passed the safety level for heavy metals, with no detection of chromium, nickel, cadmium, lead, or aluminum, while very low levels of zinc were detected. The levels were below what was returned in tests in previous years, it said.
The FDA reminded people that consuming red meat and seafood when drinking alcohol would increase uric acid levels that trigger gout.
To manage gout conditions, it is important to control food intake, to monitor body weight, drink sufficient amounts of water, avoid excessive alcohol and soda consumption, and also to cut down on high-purine food, including red meat, offals and seafood, it said.
Before and after holidays and long weekends, there is often a spike in people seeking treatment for diarrhea, the Centers for Disease Control said.
There were 152,320 people treated for diarrhea at clinics and hospitals from Sept. 17 to Saturday last week, with a rising trend, it said.
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