Best and Worst BBQ Foods

BBQ- best summer activity

BBQ may involve cooking meat with the smoke and heat of a wood fire, charcoal, gas, or electricity. It may or may not involve the use of spice rubs, marinades, or basting sauce. BBQ is traditionally cooked outdoors, but restaurants may use indoor brick or metal ovens especially designed for barbecuing.

BBQ has many regional variations, and different parts of the English-speaking world use different words to describe the techniques of cooking meat. In the US and Canada, BBQ is a slow cooking process using indirect heat or smoke, while grilling and broiling are fast cooking processes using direct heat. Food is placed directly over the heat source to grill or under the heat source to broil, but to the side or on a rack away from the heat source to make BBQ. This is also the process used to make the Argentinean asado and the Brazilian churrasco.

In the UK, Australia, and New Zealand barbecuing refers to a fast cooking process over high heat, while grilling refers to a fast cooking process under high heat. There are further differences in the use of the word to describe home and commercial cooking processes. Most American BBQ restaurants use a smoker with a separate fire box, the meat cooked over a period of 8 to 24 hours with the heat of smoke alone. Most home barbecuers cook meat over a much shorter time period.

From a health perspective, the common concerns about barbecue are:

• Food-borne infections,
• Carcinogens created by high heat, and
• Indoor and outdoor air pollution.

Let's take a look at each of these safety issues separately.

Food-borne infections

The most common food-borne infections affecting BBQ are Clostridium botulinum, the microorganism that causes botulism, and Campylobacter, the microorganism that causes cramps, fever, gum pain, and bloody diarrhea that usually cannot be controlled by antibiotics. Both complications are rare but potentially deadly consequences of poor food handling.

The key to preventing Clostridium infection is to use acid in marinades. A dash of vinegar, lemon juice, or cherry juice in the marinade stops the growth of the bacteria that cause botulism. Ten minutes exposure to high heat, 175° F/80° C or higher, kills the bacteria that remain.

The key to preventing Campylobacter is cleanliness. Simply washing your hands before and after handling raw meat will prevent cross-contamination of infected meat with any other foods you serve at your BBQ, and cooking meat thoroughly will kill the bacteria. It's more important to cook poultry thoroughly than any other kind of meat--an interior temperature of 180° F/85 C° is required to kill all the bacteria that can lodge in the thickest pieces of chicken, while as little as 120° F/50° C is OK for beef, 135° F/60 C° for lamb, and 160° F/75° for pork.

In the United States, where barbecuing is traditionally a process for making tough cuts of meat tender by a very long cooking process, contamination of the barbecue itself is very rare. Only when the cooked meat comes in contact with containers, platters, or plastic bags that held contaminated meat is any kind of bacterial contamination likely to be a problem. The South African braai and South American asado and churrasco are also likely to be safe. European quick-cooking methods, on the other hand, are much more likely to result in contaminated meat.

Carcinogens and Indoor and Outdoor Air Pollution

Carcinogens. Certain methods of barbecuing can form heterocyclic amines, also known as HCAs. These are potentially cancer-causing compounds that are created when creatine, which is naturally present in meat, combines with amino acids in the presence of oxygen. Fast-cooking under high heat without using any sauces creates the most HCAs. Slow-cooking with low heat and preparing the meat with a marinade creates the fewest HCAs.

Some kinds of barbecuing, however, don't create any carcinogens at all. If the entire cooking process occurs at temperatures below 212° F/100° C in a smoker, there are no HCAs. And microwaving for two minutes before putting meat under a grill also stops the formation of these cancer-causing chemicals, even if the meat is cooked well done without any marinade or sauce.

Indoor and Outdoor Air Pollution. The process of barbecuing can release carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, benzene, toluene, methylene chloride, and chloroform. These chemicals are especially likely to build up in "hot pot" or "fire pot" restaurants or in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean restaurants with the serving table built around a grill. Exposure to these chemicals is much more of a problem for restaurant workers than for occasional visitors, however.

In Texas, the residues of fatty acids from meats are a traceable source of outdoor air pollution. Unless you "eat and breathe BBQ," however, the only personal problems you are likely to encounter from outdoor barbecuing are those associated with the use of charcoal.

HealthCanada goes so far as to label charcoal as a potentially hazardous product. The problems from charcoal are due to manufacturing processes that combine charcoal with mined coal, oil, limestone, or wood preservatives. Natural oak charcoal produced by Greenlink, Lazzari, and Noram de México, and any product certified as organic by the Rainforest Alliance's SmartWood Program, are safe to use in your backyard BBQ.

BBQ doesn't have to be meat

Another health consideration for backyard barbecuers is excessive consumption of fat and protein that goes along with most BBQ celebrations. A summer BBQ usually means eating meat, and eating lots of it. But meat is not the only food that can be barbecued.

Try corn on the cob, removing the silks but keeping the husks attached so the kernels will not dry out--or pop. Char poblano peppers, let them cool, remove the peel, and dice to use them to make flavorful salsa. Make vegetable kabobs, cutting all the pieces about the same size to make sure they cook at the same time.

And don't forget the salads. Mayonnaise-based salads, by the way, may have more calories, but they also "suffocate" the bacteria that might cause them to spoil. You'll still want to keep them under refrigeration when they are not being served.

Summer BBQ can be safe and fun for everyone. Just be sure to cook meat slowly, to wash hands and utensils before and after using them for raw meat, and to cook with natural heat sources.  And always leave room for more--you don't have to overeat to have a great time at your summer BBQ.