Smoked meat The earliest purposeful application of chemistry was probably cooking. Primitive man, or perhaps woman, learned that heating meat made it taste better and keep longer. And somewhere along the way he or she found, probably as a result of trying to dry meat over a fire, that smoke improved its flavor and keeping qualities. Wood consists essentially of carbohydrates in the cellulose family which make up the cell walls, and lignin, a substance that binds the cells together. When these are heated they produce a variety of flavorful breakdown products. They also yield formaldehyde and acetic acid which are established preservatives. Lignin also burns to produce phenols which are toxic to the bacteria and fungi that cause food to spoil. Many of these phenols are also antioxidants meaning they can slow down the development of rancid flavors which result from the reaction of fats with oxygen. Unfortunately, though, wood smoke also contains compounds that are known carcinogens. Pyrene, fluoranthene, benzpyrene and benzanthracene can all cause cancer in test animals. That does not necessarily mean that the small doses humans are exposed to do the same, but the possibility does exist. There is, for example, a high incidence of stomach cancer among Icelanders and Baltic fishermen who consume a lot of smoked fish. The extent to which carcinogens form in the food depends on the kind of wood used and the temperature to which it is heated. Mesquite, for example, which burns at a very high temperature, produces twice the amount of carcinogens as hickory wood. One way of reducing the risk of smoked foods is through the use of “smoke solutions.” hese are made by heating sawdust and passing the resulting smoke into water. The temperature can be controlled to produce fewer carcinogens and in any case these are insoluble in water. Most of the compounds responsible for smoke flavor will dissolve so that treating meat with such a solution instead of hanging it in a smokehouse results in a safer product. In any case though, smoked foods also tend to be high in fat and salt, so it is a good idea to eat them infrequently. But that smoked meat sandwich at Schwartzs sure does taste good!
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 03:07:57 +0000
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