Barbecue is a renowned and distinctive Chinese dish, with records in "Ming Gong Shi: Shi Shi Hao Shang" mentioning that whenever it snowed, people would enjoy plum blossoms in a warm room and eat roasted mutton. The earliest form of barbecue involved cutting beef or mutton into cubes and marinating them for a short while with green onions, salt, and fermented black bean sauce before grilling. Although barbecue is delicious, frequent consumption has seven surprising hazards!
1. Damage to the digestive tract mucosa: After being grilled, the nature of the food becomes more "heaty" (in Traditional Chinese Medicine). Coupled with the use of various seasonings such as cumin, pepper, and chili, which are all considered "heaty" and spicy, they can greatly stimulate gastrointestinal motility and the secretion of digestive juices. This can potentially damage the mucosa of the digestive tract and affect the body's balance, leading to "internal heat."
2. Easy to contract parasites: Barbecued food is often charred on the outside and tender on the inside, with some parts of the meat still undercooked or even raw. If the undercooked meat is of poor quality, such as "rice pork" (pork infected with cysticerci), the consumer could become infected with parasites, laying the groundwork for the risk of developing cysticercosis.
3. Hidden carcinogens: In the Maillard reaction, nucleic acids in meat, along with most amino acids during heating and decomposition, produce substances that can cause gene mutations. These substances may lead to cancer. Furthermore, in the grilling environment, some carcinogens can enter the human body through the skin, respiratory tract, and digestive tract, inducing cancer.
4. Reduced protein utilization: During the grilling process, the "Maillard reaction" occurs. While the meat on the grill emits an enticing aroma, vitamins are destroyed, proteins become denatured, and amino acids are also broken down, severely affecting the intake of vitamins, proteins, and amino acids. Therefore, long-term consumption of grilled foods can affect the utilization of these substances.
5. Impact on vision: Consuming excessive amounts of overcooked, smoked, or grilled protein foods, such as grilled lamb skewers and grilled fish skewers, can seriously affect the eyesight of young people, leading to myopia (nearsightedness).
6. Increased risk of gynecological diseases: Women who frequently eat fried and grilled eggs and meat increase their risk of ovarian and breast cancer. For example, eating them every other day increases the risk of disease three-fold compared to eating them once a week, and five-fold compared to eating them once a month.
7. The source of raw materials is shocking, and the hygiene conditions of the processing process are even more worrying.