Acrylamide is a small molecular organic compound with simple structure, and its pure product is a transparent crystalline solid. Soluble in water, easy to polymerize at melting point, and can also polymerize under ultraviolet light. Solid acrylamide is stable at room temperature, and it will react violently when it is hot-melted or in contact with oxidant. Starch food is easy to produce acrylamide when cooked at high temperature (> 120℃), and its content increases with the increase of processing temperature. At the same time, related experiments also found that the acrylamide content in foods with high starch content is high, while the acrylamide content in foods with high protein content is relatively low.
Acrylamide is a moderately toxic substance, which has certain irritation to eyes and skin, can be absorbed through skin, respiratory tract and digestive tract, and partially accumulates in the body, mainly affecting the nervous system. One-time high-dose intake will cause the function of central nervous system, especially the function of brain, which is manifested as cerebral hemorrhage. Epidemiological observation of occupational contact population shows that people who ingest small doses of acrylamide for a long time will have symptoms such as drowsiness, mood swings, memory loss, hallucinations and tremors, and may be poisoned or accompanied by peripheral neuropathy (such as sweating and myasthenia). Neuropathy has a certain incubation period, which depends on the dose. Low-dose contact lasting for several weeks can lead to disease; Long-term low-dose exposure will lead to disease in a few years. Related animal experiments have confirmed that high acrylamide content makes animals suffer from reproductive system cancer.
Eating fried food often is easy to cause cancer, because fried food is easy to produce nitrite after high temperature treatment, and fried food is not easy to digest and greasy, which is easy to cause stomach problems.