False alarms?

[carioca]

A few random notes, prompted by recent media reports. One of our Sunday tabloids reported plans for a constellation of satellites equipped with IR sensors to spot forest fires around the world, and pinpoint their location for the fire brigades when they're still small... Good idea, but what about all the false alarms triggered by barbecues and stone ovens?

Then there was the recent scare in Der Stern magazine about acrylamide being created in food cooked/baked at high temperatures - has there been any serious research into this topic (and its relevance or otherwise to high-heat oven bakers) anywhere?

Cheers,

Carioca

[noosab]

Re: False alarms?

If I remember right, there was a move afoot (political I'm sure) about 40 years ago to ban all fried food because of acrylamide production. Nothing ever came of it but I remember reading later that it is produced to some extent in all oil containing foods that are cooked. A good article to read was one in "SCIENCE" magazine about the same time entitled something like EAT FOOD AND DIE. It was a research paper on all the naturally occuring carcinogens in almost anything normal to the human diet.
Earl