Why does zucchini cause cancer?
Zucchini, also known as American pumpkin and water melon, is a variety of pumpkin. Zucchini is deeply loved by people because of its thin skin, thick meat, rich juice, vegetarian meat and stuffing.
The news that zucchini causes cancer actually comes from an experiment. The summer squash was parched with 1200 watt and 1600 watt induction cookers for 3 minutes and 6 minutes respectively. It was found that the acrylamide released from summer squash by high temperature heating reached 360 μ g/kg, that is, 180 μ g/kg, and the results of dry frying and oil frying were the same.
According to this report, vegetables and vegetable products are the main sources of acrylamide intake from human diet, and 44.9% of them come from cooking. The longer the cooking time and the higher the temperature, the more acrylamide will be released from vegetables. Among them, the acrylamide content in fried zucchini ranks first in vegetables.
(1) What is acrylamide?
So the question is, what is acrylamide? Acrylamide is a potential carcinogen with neurotoxicity. At present, it has been found that the cancer sites related to the intake of foods containing acrylamide include: female breast, endometrium, ovary and male prostate, esophagus, stomach, colorectal cancer, pancreas, bladder, kidney, mouth, throat, lung, brain, thyroid and so on.
(2) How much acrylamide can cause cancer?
The internationally authoritative magazine Food and Chemical Toxicology pointed out that the upper limit of safe intake of acrylamide is 2.6 micrograms per kilogram of body weight, and the upper limit of safe intake of neurotoxicity is 40 micrograms per kilogram of body weight. For a person weighing 70kg, the tolerable safe intake is 182 micrograms, and the safe intake of neurotoxicity is 2800 micrograms, which are equivalent to eating 1 kg and15.5kg of fried zucchini a day respectively. Moreover, this safe intake does not mean that you will get cancer if you exceed it, but that exceeding this dose will increase the risk of cancer.
(3) Can acrylamide in zucchini be reduced?
In the experiment, fried zucchini will produce a lot of acrylamide, but if you choose to make soup, the amount of acrylamide will be greatly reduced, maybe only 25 micrograms. This is because the highest temperature of water is only 100. If the high temperature of 120 is not reached, acrylamide will not be produced so quickly and not so much.
Therefore, fried zucchini will produce acrylamide, but to consume more than the safe amount, you need to eat more than 1 kg every day. At the same time, the risk of cancer is related to the cooking method. The acrylamide content produced by frying zucchini is high, and the acrylamide content produced by boiling zucchini is not high, which is relatively safe, so people can choose to cook zucchini in water, which is healthy and safe!
Nutritional value of zucchini
In fact, zucchini has a lot of nutrients. Zucchini is rich in protein, minerals, vitamins and other substances, without fat, but also contains citrulline, adenine, aspartic acid and other substances, and its sodium content is very low, so it is recognized as a health food.
Zucchini contains trigonelline and propanedioic acid, which are not found in common melons. It has the functions of regulating human metabolism and inhibiting the conversion of sugar into fat, and is known as "natural healthy food" and "natural slimming beauty food".
Zucchini also contains more cellulose. Hemicellulose, lignin and pectin. These substances can not be hydrolyzed by human digestive enzymes, but they can promote intestinal peristalsis and facilitate fecal excretion.
More importantly, zucchini contains an interferon inducer, which can stimulate the body to produce interferon, improve immunity, and play an anti-virus and tumor role.
In a word, there is no doubt about the nutritional value of zucchini. Of course, you can't refuse zucchini because of its possible carcinogens. For health, zucchini can still be eaten.