What Happens When You Grill a Steak?

Americans love to barbecue. Eighty percent of US households own a grill or smoker. Memorial Day to Labor Day is prime grilling season, but 60% of grillers do so all year.

Americans love grilling because of the taste and the convenience. Many also find it personally satisfying to grill outdoors while others find it a great way to entertain and spend time at home.

What Happens to Meat When You Grill It?

Contrary to popular belief, red meat is red, not due to blood, but a mixture of water and a protein called myoglobin. Myoglobin helps to ship oxygen into muscle cells. The darker red the meat is, the greater the concentration of myoglobin.

The color changes that occur as meat is cooked are also due to myoglobin. In red meat, myoglobin changes from red to tan and grayish brown as it is heated. This color change also has to do with moisture, which is why well-done meat that’s turned gray-brown is often dry.

The Maillard Reaction is also involved. This occurs due to a chemical reaction between amino acids and sugars in the meat, which results in browning as well as the flavor of cooked meat.

You can further alter the flavor of the meat depending on whether you use a gas or charcoal grill. Compounds from charcoal, woodchips and smoke, will permeate the meat, adding a more “authentic” grilled flavor.

Why Grilling Isn’t the Healthiest Choice for Cooking Your Meat:

Grilling is unfortunately not one of the healthiest ways to cook your meat. Cooking at high temperatures, such as occurs during grilling, leads to the creation of toxic chemicals such as heterocyclic amines (HCAs), which are linked to cancer.

Avoiding charring your meat can help to some extent, as the blackened section is the worst in terms of HCAs, but it will not completely eliminate your risk. For instance, when fat drips onto the heat source, causing excess smoke, the smoke surrounds your food.

Along with adding that “flame-grilled” flavor to your meat, it can transfer cancer-causing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)as well. Both HCAs and PAHs are mutagenic, which means they cause changes in DNA that may increase cancer risk and have been found to cause cancer in animals.

So just how much of a cancer risk are you really taking when you eat grilled meat? Scientists have estimated the average cancer risk due to heterocyclic amine exposure ranges from 1 per 10,000 for the average person to more than 1 per 50 for those ingesting large amounts of well-done muscle meats (beef, pork, fish, poultry), especially flame-grilled chicken.

Other research shows:

1. People who regularly eat well-done meat cooked at high temperatures have a 60 percent greater risk of pancreatic cancer.

2. A diet high in HCAs has been linked to tumors in the breast, colon, liver, skin, lung, prostate and other organs in animals.

Not ready to give up grilling? Here are 12 tips to cut down on your risk:

1. Resist smothering your steak in barbecue sauce. Such sauces, which are traditionally made with sugar and tomatoes, have been found to cause a significant increase in chemical formation, “doubling and even tripling” levels of HCAs after 15 minutes of cooking.

2. A far better option is to marinate the steak in beer. When researchers marinated pork loin steaks in beer for four hours, then grilled it to well-done on a charcoal grill, it lead to significantly lower amounts of PAHs in the meat.

3. Aside from adding flavor, spices and other marinades, such as vinegar and olive oil, can significantly cut back on the number of toxic cooking byproducts produced.

4. Since most store-bought marinades are far from healthy, they typically contain corn syrup, MSG, and other additives, Making your own at home. Acidic marinades that contains lemon juice or vinegar are especially good for reducing carcinogens during grilling. You can find a lot of good natural marinade recipes online.

5. Always avoid charring your meat.

6. When grilling , try to cook your food with indirect heat, such as on a rack rather than directly on the coals. Cooking on a cedar plank is also helpful.

7. Cook smaller pieces of meat, which take less time to cook, and therefore give HCAs less time to form.

8. Reduce your cooking temperatures. This will also significantly reduce potential carcinogens. Remember, with HCAs, the longer the cooking time and the higher the heat, the more HCAs.

9. Avoid grilling hot dogs, bratwurst, and other processed meats, as these seem to be among the worst offenders.

10. Flip your burgers often, as this will help cut down on HCAs.

11. If grilling chicken, remove the skin prior to cooking, and don’t eat the skin if you do cook it, as it has the highest HCA content.

12. Buy grass fed beef with no growth hormones. Just as important as cooking method is choosing a high-quality source for your meat. Grass fed beef is the way to go. It is leaner, more nutritious and hasn’t been feed GMO corn! Also make sure that it is antibiotic free.

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