Cooking of meat and fish in Europe—results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)

Abstract

Objectives: There is epidemiologic evidence that the consumption of fried, grilled or barbecued meat and fish that are welldone or browned may be associated with an increased cancer risk. These high-temperature cooking methods are thought to be surrogates for mutagens and carcinogens produced in meat and fish, eg heterocyclic amines or polycyclic hydrocarbons. Since data on food cooking methods are scarce, the aim of this study was to describe the variation in meat and fish cooking methods in different parts of Europe. Design: Using a standardized 24 h recall from a sub-sample of the EPIC cohort (35 644 persons, 35 -75 y old), mean daily intake of meat and fish prepared by different cooking methods and the relative contribution of the cooking methods to the overall cooking of meat and fish was calculated. Results: Whereas frying was more often noted in northern Europe, roasting and stir frying were more often used in the south. Concerning high-temperature cooking methods, their frequency of application varies between 15% in the EPIC cohort of NorthItaly and 49% in the cohort of The Netherlands. Average consumption of fried, grilled and barbecued meat and fish ranges from a low of 12 g=day in the centres in southern Spain to a high of 91 g=day in northern Spain.

Fish consumption and breast cancer risk. The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)

“…To give a good estimates of the intake of HA or PAH, one would have to develop a questionnaire on cooking methods for fish and degree of browning that could be applied in all EPIC countries. 31 Since we found no association between fish and breast cancer for any of the countries, there is no reason to believe that the results would differ substantially by adjusting for these compounds.…”

“…Heterocyclic amines (HA) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) formed during preparation of the fish at high temperatures may be one of the reasons. Rohrmann et al, 31 studied the different preparation methods for meat and fish in the 24-HDR in EPIC. They found that hightemperature cooking methods were more often used in northern Europe and less often used in the EPIC cohorts of France, northern Italy, Greece and southern Spain.…”

Smoking during pregnancy is associated with higher dietary intake of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and poor diet quality

“…However, estimates of the use of cooking methods associated with the highest levels of PAH, such as barbecuing (34) , are relatively low (1 %) in the Spanish population (35) . We calculated a weighted mean of BaP and total PAH for meat items based on the proportions of use of different cooking methods in the Spanish population estimated in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study (35) . The strength of the present study is that we estimated the intake of dietary PAH based on concentrations in individual foods, which enabled us to report the intake for fairly refined food subgroups.…”

Dietary intake of different types and characteristics of processed meat which might be associated with cancer risk – results from the 24-hour diet recalls in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)

“…These so-called 'possibly hazardous cooking methods' (HCM) include barbecuing, frying and grilling. A detailed description of the use of cooking methods for the preparation of meat and fish was given elsewhere 27 . Due to differences in the extent of mis-(under-)reporting between centres 28 , all results were adjusted for total energy intake (continuous variable).…”