Fried Potato Blues

The Food and Drug Administration released data this week corroborating a European study that said French fries, chips and other fried or baked starchy foods contain a high level of acrylamide.

The substance has been found to cause cancer in laboratory animals. In fact, the longer the fry is cooked, the higher the level of the carcinogen.

However, Dr. Carl Winter, the director of FoodSafe Program, says the FDA's data does not prove carcinogen in French fries and potatoes lead to cancer in humans. He says projecting cancer in humans from low doses of carcinogen from high doses in animals is a leap.

"We have a saying in toxicology which is, 'The dose makes the poison,'" says Dr. Winter. "It's the amount of a chemical -- not its presence or absence --that determines the potential for harm … What's much less clear is the health significance, if any, of our much lower levels of exposure to acrylamides in foods."

The jury is still out on what the findings mean.

Asparagine is a naturally occurring amino acid that, when heated with certain sugars such as glucose, leads to the formation of the worrisome substance acrylamide.

Canada's government made the discovery about the suspect chemical reaction, and has ordered food manufacturers to look for ways to alter it and thus lower levels of acrylamide in food. Cincinnati-based manufacturer Procter & Gamble Co. says its scientists also have found the asparagine connection. And Swiss and British scientists report in this week's edition of the journal Nature that they, too, found the link.

It is the first clue to emerge in the mystery of acrylamide since Swedish scientists made the surprise announcement in the spring that high levels of the possible carcinogen are in numerous everyday foods: french fries, potato chips, some types of breakfast cereals and breads — plenty of high-carbohydrate foods that are fried or baked at high temperatures. The chemical was not found in boiled foods, which are cooked at lower temperatures.

Sweden's findings were confirmed in June by governments in Norway, Britain and Switzerland, and preliminary testing of several hundred foods by the FDA suggests U.S. foods contain similar acrylamide levels, said Richard Canady, who is directing the agency's assessment of acrylamide's risk.

Acrylamide is used to produce plastics and dyes and to purify drinking water. Although traces have been found in water, no one expected high levels to be in basic foods.

It causes cancer in test animals, but it has not been proved to do so in people. Still, Swedish scientists have said the levels are high enough that foodborne acrylamide might be responsible for several hundred cases of cancer in that country each year.

In the United States, the FDA has been careful to caution that acrylamide so far is only a suspected carcinogen. The FDA has not yet advised consumers to alter their diets to avoid it.

Dr. Winter suggests the healthiest thing for people to do is eat a diet of moderation and follow the food guide pyramid.