Health Issues of Grilling Food

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Hot fun in the summer time

The Benefits of cooking food vs. Eating It Raw

Dear Friend,

In this issue I want to cover a few things about diet and grilling. Summer is a time and in some cases the only time when some of us grill.

Personally I love to grill but I am aware there are some health issues with it.

First let's touch upon cooking in general.

Proponents of the Paleolithic (ancient man) diet say that cooking is a bad thing, and that most if not all foods should be eaten 100% raw. Most of these folks do not eat much red meat for obvious health reasons.

Cooking food is basically a main stay of disease control. Cooking destroy parasites and their eggs as well as bacteria and some viruses.

If you are going to eat raw foods you need to avoid foods like pork and red meat as well as some fish because of the possibility of flukes, and other parasites and bacteria.

Raw food selection must be very careful and if you are going to do this you need a reliable source of absolutely fresh food.

This type of diet is way beyond the time and the commitment that most of us are willing to dedicate to eating.

The proliferation of fast food chains tells us all that eating has become a need to be filled in the most rapid fashion possible often while doing something else.

Not too long ago our ancestor's entire lives revolved around food and eating.

Believe me their are still cultures in this world that place a high premium on meal times.

When I visited Paris in 2002 most of our evening meals took upwards of 3 hours. Believe me the French relax and enjoy their food. You do not rush there and I saw a lot of fidgety Americans barely able to contain themselves at the slow service!

Grilling has to be the oldest form of cooking and it remains in my experience a "Man" thing.

One of the pet peeves I hear from women is that there husband will go out and throw a steak on the grill watch it cook for a few minutes while the wife prepares the rest of the meal from start to finish. The husband then proudly proclaims to anyone who will listen that he "made dinner".

Ladies don't try to understand! It is a primal Paleolithic thing for men to grill!

In a sense cooking of any kind can diminish or destroy food values. Clearly heat denatures proteins and alters fats. The latter subject is in my opinion where most of the damage is done.

In addition grilling or cooking to a crust, as in blackening steak is essentially caramelizing the sugar in the food which is another way of providing damaging effects on the body.

Before you think am about to recommend that no one cook anything let me say that I think in many cases the benefits FAR outweigh the risks.

So let me give you a few interesting food/cooking tips.

Large amounts of some types of food have been linked to cancer of the breast and colon in women and men,

Foods high in saturated fats are especially likely to cause this. That includes red meats and pork.

If you are overweight the cancer risk from eating these foods goes up! If you remember my "Pizza Hypothesis" from the first newsletter consuming large amounts of Omega 3 Fish Oils when you eat big doses of saturated or Omega 6 fats blunts the bad effects (inflammation, elevated blood fats, tightening of the blood vessels and damage to them).

Fresh water fish consumption may actually increase cancer!

Marine fish clearly lower the risk even though they are clearly causing other problems with lead and mercury and other toxin exposure. I limit my fish consumption to 2 meals a week most times.

If you are going to eat red meats try to eat a much bigger serving of green/red vegetables with them. Also cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower are great choices especially if eaten raw or slightly microwaved.

Red and green peppers, squash, spinach and nuts can be added to the meat to reduce the portions and still fill you up.

Don't forget the red wine. The "French Paradox" refers to the fact that the French eat tons of very rich foods loaded with saturated fats, but they have a fairly low incidence of heart disease.

This has been attributed to the moderate consumption and I say moderate, no more than 2 glasses a day (2 to 4ounces max) of red wine.

There are many wonderful anti-oxidants in the red wine including resvertrol, pycogenols and other polyphenols.

Unfortunately, white wine by virtue of its absence of pigments (red blue and purple) does not confer these benefits.

If you can't tolerate red wine because the histamine content is too much for you (congestion and headaches) then grape seed extract is an OK substitute.

I love berries for dessert in the summer. Once again the red, blue, and purple colored berries are loaded with anti-oxidants.

Shortly we will be releasing Cardio and Immune Boosters which contain the absolute strongest anti-oxidant in one source you can find! Watch for it!

Now a few more cooking tips.

If you use olive, or other oil to cook you are probably defeating the healthy benefits of these oils. Most plant oils are Omega 6 anyway and are not healthy.

Examples of cooking oils loaded with Omega 6 fats are safflower, sunflower, corn, and sesame. Use these oils infrequently if ever.

Also as with olive oil cooking these oils at anything over a sauté leads to the formation of very unhealthy "trans" fats!

This is the most common mistake I see people make. They COOK with olive oil and think it's healthy. Keep the temperature low or use it cold on salads etc.

Fish Oil especially salmon oil is extremely heat stable up to greater than 500 degrees. Experiments on different types of cooking (broiling, grilling, micro waving etc) showed that it does not get hydrogenated or turned into a Trans fat until you hit 700 degrees F.

One of the reasons I do not make a liquid product is because exposing the oil to oxygen hastens the products oxidation and conversion to bad or rancid fat. The gel cap confers protection from this since it is air tight. The typical shelve life is 15 months!

Those of you who need to consume a liquid product make sure you keep it cool in a dark bottle and use it quickly. Don't let it sit around for months!

My absolute favorite cooking oil is Grape seed oil. Even though it is a plant oil it has some short chain Omega 3's a few of which might get turned into the usable long chain form. It also has some of the polyphenols that red wine has, and it is heat stable up to 700 degrees F.

You can find it in Mediterranean food stores.

A few more grilling tips. While I love the taste of charcoal grilled foods, there are a lot of carcinogens in the charcoal so beware.

It is best to cook over low to medium heat fires and cook with the lid off so the smoke doesn't accumulate around the food and bathe it in the chemicals from the charcoal. Gas grills avoid this problem.

Real hardwood has far fewer preservatives than briquettes so I prefer it. The problem is it cooks much hotter and faster so you have to use a lot less, spread it out more, and have a grill that you can open the grate to safely add more for longer cooking because it burns up very quickly.

Cooking your food slowly and at low heat creates fewer cancer causing substances and alters the nutritional value of your food less.

For the same reasons cook your food to medium doneness and don't blacken or char the outside (e.g. avoid ""Pittsburgh rare"").

Put some foil with holes poked in it over the coals so the fat from the grilled meats doesn't drip directly on the coals. This again limits the creation of cancer causing substances that boil or steam up from the coals after the fat hits them.

Turn your food often.

Eat your veggies raw.

Lightly precook foods in the microwave. This way they need less time on the grill and have less exposure to the cancer causing substances. Coating the food with marinades, or other insulating sauces does this too.

Here is a sample menu from my Grill. Notice I throw caution to the winds in this one as far as some of the ingredients, but I don't eat this way too often.

1) Free Range filet of beef or ocean caught salmon steaks or filets.

2) If red meat marinate in a sauce consisting of 1-2 cloves of garlic, sesame seeds, 1 can of Pepsi cola,1/2 cup Chianti or red table wine, 1 cup beef broth sweetened with 2 Tbsp of turbinado or other raw sugar. Mix with 4 ounces of each of lemon, lime, and orange juice. Add ¼ cup shallots and sauté the whole mixture for about 20 min.

Marinate overnight.

Sauce for the Fish 1cup red wine ¼ cup lemon, ¼ cup orange juice again sweetened with 4 Tbsp of turbinado, and ¼ cup of diced microwaved tomatoes. Lemon pepper to taste and sauté for 20 min. Cool and marinate salmon for at lest 6 hours.

Veggies are raw red/green peppers, spinach salad with toasted (lightly!) chopped walnuts and goat cheese. Sweet potato if you like.

Dessert: hand full of unsalted raw cashews (small hand full! Because they can be high in carbs!) Served along side a large bowl of fresh blueberries or strawberries.

Last week I had a special treat which was red raspberries form my garden and wild elderberries also from my yard!

Great fresh food is one of the reasons I love summer.

No meal of mine would be complete without a handful of my Pharmaceutical Grade Fish Oil!!!

Best,

Dave Woynarowski, M.D., CPT
The Nation's #1 Anti-Aging Physician

P.S. For the worlds best anti-aging supplements including Dr Dave's Best Pharmaceutical Grade Fish Oil go here and order now. Don't delay; you are not getting any younger, YET!