Extension Communications Extension 4-H Youth Building Ames, Iowa 50011-3630 (515) 294-9915

4/21/04

For immediate release

Contacts:
Sam Beattie, PhD, ISUE Food Science and Human Nutrition, (515) 294-3357, beatties@iastate.edu
Diane Nelson, Continuing Education and Communication Services, (515) 294-3178, dinelson@iastate.edu

Acrylamide Explained

AMES, Iowa--Acrylamide may be one of the latest potential cancer-causing compounds to be identified in food but that's no reason for consumers to panic. "We will continue to identify compounds in foods because scientific detection methods are continually improving," reminds Sam Beattie, Iowa State University Extension food safety specialist. "Because acrylamide is formed during traditional cooking methods, it is likely to have been a part of cooked foods for as long as humans have been cooking. Is it a concern now? Probably not, especially for people who eat a balanced, varied diet."

Acrylamide is a chemical with a variety of industrial uses, including cosmetics, food packaging materials, soil conditioning agents and water treatment. It is known to cause cancer in laboratory animals exposed to it at extremely high levels. It is also known to be a component of cigarette smoke.

"Acrylamide first showed up in food products about two years ago when Swedish scientists studying the results of occupational acrylamide exposure detected signs of acrylamide exposure in people who were not known to have been exposed to it from environmental or industrial sources," Beattie said.

Since then, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and several other countries have detected low levels of the compound in a variety of cooked foods.
"Acrylamide appears to be a result of traditional cooking methods, such as baking, frying and roasting," Beattie said. "Acrylamide in food is not the result of contamination from environmental sources."

FDA has collected public comments on acrylamide and developed an action plan with the goal of reducing the potential risk of acrylamide in foods to the greatest extent feasible. (For more information see http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/acryplan.html.)

"Because the compound is formed during cooking, there is no reason to believe that organic foods would have more or less acrylamide levels than other foods," Beattie said.

"The best advice continues to be to eat a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods that are low in fat and rich in high-fiber grains, fruits, and vegetables," Beattie concluded.

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