How people cook meats can have major health implications. Women who consistently eat their meat very well done with a crispy blackened crust face almost five times the breast cancer risk of those who eat rare or medium cooked meats. For years scientist have been investigating the conditions under which a family of carcinogens known as heterocyclic amines (HCAs) develop in cooked meats. HCAs can bind to DNA in breast cells forming molecular structure called adducts, a first step in cancer development. Well done meat was shown to contain ten times the amount of HCAs than less well done meat. Fat content can also prove important. When fried under the same conditions, hamburgers that started wit 5 percent fat developed up to five times the HCAs as burgers with 15 percent fat.

Science News Novermber 28, 1998 page 341

COMMENT: The Price Pottinger Foundation has long advocated raw foods and raw meat. Most people balk at that due to the risk of infection. However, there are clearly down sides to cooking and these new studies clearly show that the HCAs are one important mechanism to cause harm. An excellent book on the subject is We Want to Live by Vonderplanitz which details the successful treatment of hundreds of cancers with raw meat.