Grilling Meat Gives You Cancer, But Beer Prevents It

RogerSterlingJr10 years ago

Next time you are forced to chug a beer and hold it over your head and scream “finished, sir!” at someone only a year older than you, you better make damn sure none of it drips on your head. After all, that beer could save your life one day.

Scientists in Portugal recently completed studies showing that beer could prevent cancer. You see, when you grill a steak, or a burger, or chicken, or sausage, or a pork loin, or corn on the cob, or a pizza, molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are formed. These things mess up your DNA and can cause colon cancer, which in turn can cause you to shit in a bag for the rest of your days. Sucks, right?

Wrong. When barley is roasted in the beer brewing process, melanoids are formed, and these things fight off the ass cancer-causing PAHs. Before you grill, make sure you soak the animal slab in beer — but not the Pisswater Light you grab out of the bathtub behind the basement bar. No, for this, you’re going to need a Guinness, because the darker the beer, the better.

From The Economist:

When cooked, unmarinated steaks had an average of 21 nanograms (billionths of a gram) of PAHs per gram of grilled meat. Those marinated in Pilsner averaged 18 nanograms. Those marinated in black beer averaged only 10 nanograms.

Throw a few back while you’re tending the barbeque, too. After all, if a little as a marinade can prevent cancer, imagine what a thirty rack in your belly could solve.

It’s science..

[via The Economist]

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