Does braised pork and fish meat and fish cause cancer?

There is a lot of information that the act of using sugar to create colored water to braise meat and fish has the potential to cause cancer. Is this true or false?

Boiling sugar into colored water to braise meat and fish is a habit of many families. However, scientifically speaking, you should not try to win on your own because it can cause many health consequences.

It's best not to use your own sugar to prepare food.

For example, housewives often use sugar based on their feelings, making it difficult to measure the amount of food they consume. If you eat more of this food than you need and over a long period of time, the excess sugar will be accumulated as stored fat, easily leading to overweight and obesity.

Most people often use yellow sugar or white sugar to create colored water. When heated at about 150 degrees, sugar dehydrates, forms simple sugar molecules and changes color and has a characteristic flavor, called "caramelization reaction" . At restaurants, experienced chefs still use caramelized sugar to create beautiful colors and attractive flavors.

However, it is very easy to overheat the sugar when adding sugar. Many people even let the sugar smoke before adding water. Thus, sugar will produce chemicals such as carcinogens, heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). all creating favorable conditions for cancer to form.

Therefore, it is best not to use sugar to prepare dishes . The simplest way is to use commercially available products with clear origins and clearly marked quantities, avoiding the abuse of sugar.

Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Duy Thinh,
Institute of Biotechnology and Food, Hanoi University of Science and Technology