What we know for sure is that certain foods should never be cooked in a pan, for taste reasons, but also for health safety reasons. Cooking in a pan is synonymous with high temperature and who says strong heat, says potentially carcinogenic toxic compounds.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says so. Cooking at high temperatures must be limited to a maximum of 175°C, but in the center of a pan, the temperature can reach up to 350°C. For this reason, the Food Observatory strongly recommends against cooking certain foods in a pan (source 1).
What happens when you cook food at high temperature?
There are several levels of heat causing various chemical transformations. “Between 160 and 180°C browning reactions increase and undesirable compounds appear. Above 200° C, prolonged cooking or marked browning generate greater risks,” explains dietitian-nutritionist Clara Ledoux Morvan.
“Certain heat-sensitive vitamins like vitamin C and folate are particularly destroyed “, she explains. On the other hand, “fats, in particular unsaturated fats, can oxidize and form compounds that are harmful to the body.”
All these chemical transformations are not necessarily to be avoided since they contribute to the taste, but must still be limited according to health recommendations.
What foods should you definitely not cook in a pan?
Cooking in a pan is a type of cooking that can be more complicated when it comes to heating certain foods.
Sunflower oil
Lsunflower oil is not suitable for rapid cooking at high temperatures. The reason? Its fatty acid composition does not allow this. Classic sunflower oil is very rich in omega-6polyunsaturated fatty acids which become fragile on contact with high heat.
Once it reaches a certain boiling point, called the “smoke point” (around 225°C), sunflower oil produces toxic compounds, aldehydes (classified as a probable carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer), and loses its nutritional qualities.
The best choice then remains touse oils more suited to pan-frying as olive or avocado oil. They contain monounsaturated fatty acids, stable even when heated.
The bread
For those who don’t have a toaster at home, it is common to use the pan to lightly brown your morning toast or the bread for your sandwich. But be careful do not leave the bread in the pan for too long so that it does not darken. The charred part contains a substance called acrylamideconsidered to have carcinogenic potential for humans.
Cucumber
Vegetables rich in water such as cucumber which is composed almost exclusively of it, become soft, even flabby when heated in a pan. They lose their crunchy side and adopt an unpleasant texture.
Mozzarella
Mozzarella is a cheese rich in water that we like to enjoy fresh, but which when subjected to heat, releases a lot of liquid, without really crisping. The texture becomes liquid and once heated too much, can even stick to the pan and grill. Other Italian cheeses such as burrata are also affected.
The carrot
The carrot, when raw, is a very firm vegetable. Cooked quickly in the pan, it does not become tender. For it to become so, you must first cut it into very thin slices, and cook it for a long time over low heat with a little water and fat.
The risk with pan frying is that the carrot burns on the outside and remains crunchy on the insideimpacting texture and taste.
The phenomenon of glycation and the formation of toxins
Brutal cooking promotes the production of a particularly dangerous substance: acrylamide.
This transformation is the complex result of a high temperature cooking of sugars, starches and non-essential amino acids also called asparagine. When the pan heats up, these elements undergo a phenomenon of glycation, otherwise called the Maillard reaction which results from the irreversible fixation of sugars on proteins in the body.
What are the health consequences of glycation?
This glycation generates toxic compounds, including the famous acrylamide, known to have harmful effects on health. Since 1994, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified acrylamide as a proven animal carcinogen and a probable human carcinogen.
But the risks of developing cancer are not the only ones. The accumulation of food heated to high temperatures in the body is at the origin of the development of chronic diseases as :
- THE diabetes ;
- cardiovascular diseases (progressive damage to blood vessels);
- neurodegenerative diseases (cognitive aging and cerebral);
- aging of the skin (formation of wrinkles).
So how can you adapt your food to avoid getting sick? Three tips can help you. Reduce the consumption of risky foods like fries or toast is a first thing. But it would also be necessary change your cooking habits. Starting by not overheating your cooking oil, but also not grilling or browning too often, and not eating the browned parts.
Gentle and slow cooking at less than 100° C, such as steaming or simmering, has, unlike cooking in a pan, various qualities including that of better preserving nutrients and promoting their digestibility.