According to the warning of the World Health Organization (WHO), the familiar foods in the daily meals below may be limited or should not be used because they are agents that can be harmful to health, even cancer:
Moldy food
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Peanuts, rice, corn and other moldy foods contain the highly toxic aflatoxin. Aflatoxin is a class 1 carcinogen, 68 times more toxic than arsenic and 70 times more carcinogenic than dimethyl nitrosamine. Aflatoxin is a metabolite of Aspergillus flavus.
When packaged without drying or improperly stored, food will be contaminated with Aspergillus flavus and produce aflatoxin, thereby causing mold and spoilage. After aflatoxin enters the human body, it can cause major damage to the liver and increase the risk of liver cancer.
Pickled vegetables
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Pickles and salted eggplant are familiar dishes in the family tray of Vietnamese people. But experts said: If you do not know how to do and eat right, it is very easy to get cancer.
When pickled, pickled eggplant still has a pungent, spicy taste, has not been thoroughly fermented, the nitrate content will be converted into nitrite which will combine with amino acids in food and convert into nitrosamine. This substance has been shown to cause cancer.
Fried meat and grilled meat
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These are two favorite dishes of many young people, but they are ranked at the top of the list of causing cancer.
Meat when grilled at high temperatures easily burns the edges, the burnt part contains benzopyrene. In addition, if grilled with charcoal, benzopyrene is also created from charcoal following being burned, it can float in the air, mix with oil smoke, fall and stick to food.
As for fried food, vegetable oil when heated above 270 ° C will produce benzopyrene, reaching the threshold of 300 degrees C a large amount of benzopyrene is formed that will stick to the food. In particular, when you eat fried food outside, there are restaurants that use frying oil over and over once more to increase the benzopyrene content many times, extremely dangerous to health.
Dried fish, salted fish
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Dried fish, salted fish are familiar dishes of many localities. However, these foods are classified as class 1 carcinogens. Because, in the process of salting fish, high concentrations of table salt are used to dehydrate the fish. This process easily leads to salted fish, fish that contains a lot of nitrite. Nitrite will convert to nitrosamine (nitrosodimethylamine) following entering the body.
Under the acidic environment of the stomach, nitrosamines are extremely carcinogenic. Moreover, in addition to the carcinogenic risk caused by nitrite, salted fish can produce bacteria during sun exposure, drying, and even produce aflatoxin… and aflatoxin is also an extremely carcinogenic substance. strong.
Processed meat
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The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization (WHO), has reported that processed meats increase the risk of cancer, especially colorectal cancer. , pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer.
According to the agency, processed meat such as sausage, beef jerky, sausage, ham, etc., is meat that has been modified through salting, processing, fermentation, smoking or other processes to enhance flavor or improve shelf life and shelf life. Reducing processed meat in the diet can directly cut down on potentially carcinogenic compounds, reducing the amount of saturated fat in the body.
Alcohol
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The main ingredient of alcohol is ethanol. After ethanol enters the human body, it will be converted into acetaldehyde (a type 1 carcinogen), then further converted into acetic acid, finally into carbon dioxide and water. Alcohol can cause cancer in many ways, mainly DNA damage, long-term drinking will cause DNA damage to accumulate gradually, in the process of accumulation, it is easy to cause some mutations and cause cancer. .
According to medical experts, cancers are linked to heavy drinking habits, including breast cancer, colorectal cancer, rectal cancer, liver cancer and oral cavity cancer.
