Health
The dark side of crispy, crunchy foods
Crispy foods may be delicious, but high-temperature cooking can create compounds that may affect our health. Discover simple cooking methods and food swaps to help reduce your intake.
By Paula Goodyer
Crumbed schnitzel, toasted cereal, roasted nuts and chips: we might love the taste and texture of food that’s browned or cooked to a crisp, but eating too much can mess with our health… and it’s all to do with the cooking temperature.
“Exposing foods, especially animal foods rich in protein or fat, to high temperature cooking – like frying, toasting, grilling or barbecuing – creates compounds that build up in our bodies over time, promoting inflammation in our cells and playing havoc with our blood vessels,” says Dr Nicole Kellow, a senior lecturer at Monash University’s Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food.
Called Advanced Glycation End Products - or AGEs - these compounds can damage the collagen and elastin in our blood vessel walls, making them stiff instead of elastic - and this means blood can’t flow through them as freely as it should, she explains.
“This can contribute to complications of diabetes, like kidney damage and vision loss by damaging the fine blood vessels in the kidneys and eyes, and can increase the risk of heart disease - AGEs can also attach themselves to our ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol, making it more likely to stick to blood vessel walls. There’s also emerging evidence that these compounds may contribute to dementia - AGEs can cross into the brain, increasing inflammation and encouraging deposits of beta-amyloid, the sticky plaque that’s linked to the development of dementia,” Dr Kellow adds.
And they do our skin no favours: AGEs cling to collagen and elastin in our skin, reducing their elasticity and accelerating ageing and wrinkles.
So does this mean you can never have a barbecue or a bikkie? Not exactly - but the growing evidence of the harm AGEs can do is an argument for reducing them.
Easy ways to lower AGEs in your diet
The more fresh and minimally processed food you eat - and the lower the temperature you cook it at, the fewer AGEs you’ll accumulate, Dr Kellow says. On the other hand, a shopping trolley piled with packaged, highly processed food will contribute more AGEs because so much of this food is cooked using either high temperature or dry cooking methods.
Examples of foods high in AGEs are crunchy packaged snack foods, roasted nuts, nut butters, toasted or baked breakfast cereals and toasted muesli, baked goods like biscuits, cakes, pastry, croissants and doughnuts, drinks such as long life milk treated with ultra-heat processing (UHT), cooked meats including processed meat.
As for reducing AGEs in home cooking, a few tweaks to your cooking style are all you need.
· Slowly does it. “One reason why a traditional Mediterranean diet is lower in AGEs is because it includes less meat and involves dishes made with moister cooking methods like stews and slow cooked sauces cooked for longer at a lower temperature, rather than a lot of dryer high temperature frying,” Dr Kellow says. “Steaming and poaching are other ‘wet’ ways of cooking and using a microwave or Thermomix is fine too. Cooking at lower temperatures helps reduce the formation of AGEs. Stir frying isn’t a ‘wet’ method but better than roasting because food is exposed to heat for less time. An air-fryer will still generate AGEs ”
· Pile on the plant food ... A traditional Mediterranean diet also includes plenty of antioxidant-rich vegetables, legumes and fruit - and antioxidants are one of the best inhibitors of AGEs, she adds. So have a salad on the side and use more vegetables and legumes in stews, sauces and curries
· …. but eat less red meat. Cooked red meat is high in AGEs so stick with one or two serves each week.
· Add some acidity - marinating meat, poultry and fish using acidic ingredients like citrus juice or vinegar for an hour before frying, grilling, barbecuing or roasting can help reduce the formation of AGEs by at least 50 per cent.
Other ways to reduce the AGEs load
Not all AGEs are created by food. They also occur naturally in the body and we accumulate more as we age. But just as we can reduce AGEs in our food, there are ways to help lower the build-up of naturally occurring AGEs too, Dr Kellow explains - and keeping blood sugar levels healthy is one.
“High levels of blood glucose, whether it’s because of having diabetes or having blood glucose levels that are higher than normal, help create more AGEs,” she says. “Other strategies that help are avoiding weight gain, being physically active and keeping blood pressure and cholesterol levels healthy.”
Reduce AGEs with these smarter swaps
· Raw unsalted nuts, not roasted nuts.
· Slow cooked chicken casserole, not fried lamb chops.
· Natural muesli, not toasted muesli.
· Untoasted bread, or very lightly toasted bread, not heavily toasted bread.
· Avocado, cottage cheese or olive oil on bread, not nut butter
· A bowl of pasta, not a pie.
· Scrambled or poached eggs, or an omelette - not fried eggs or French toast
· Low fat yoghurt and berries, not a biscuit
· Fetta or cottage cheese are the lowest AGEs cheese choice - other cheeses are moderate to high in AGEs.
The information on this page is general information and should not be used to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease. Do not use the information found on this page as a substitute for professional health care advice. Any information you find on this page or on external sites which are linked to on this page should be verified with your professional health care provider.
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