What Foods Don't Give Us Cancer?

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Aug 5, 2008 4:24PM

Four potato chip manufacturers recently settled a lawsuit with the State of California and agreed to reduce the levels of a carcinogen found in starchy foods over the next three years. The carcinogen, acrylamide, is produced naturally in starchy foods when baked or fried at temperatures over 120° F.

What we've had trouble wrapping our heads around was: how to reduce those acrylamide levels while still baking or frying potatoes. So we called a few snack manufacturers to get some ideas. Of the three, for Peerless Potato Chips in Gary was busy and a spokesman for Evans Foods in Back of the Yards — makers of tasty pork rinds —hung up on us (TWICE!) when we uttered the word "cancer."

We did speak to a spokeswoman for CJ Vitner's in upstate Freeport. The spokeswoman said that Vitner's has been keeping tabs on the California lawsuit, but as of now don't have a plan in place to reduce acrylamide levels and are waiting word from the FDA on how to proceed. If anyone out there knows a food scientist, we'd love to speak with them about this. [CNN, via AP]