I Don’t Eat French Fries to Avoid the Acrylamide, But It’s a Collateral Benefit

The LA Times contains an article that skims the surface on acrylamide, an animal carcinogen discovered to be formed from the cooking of carbohydrate-rich foods such as French fries and potato chips. The California state attorney general is looking into requiring posting exposure warnings under Proposition 65.

Acrylamide exposure in foods is a perfect example of the problem of carcinogen identification, risk assessment and exposure mitigation, particularly for substances that are known animal carcinogens but are uncertain as human carcinogens. Revere is taking a crack at the subject – you can read about it here. With regard to the mitigation piece, I’ve always seen Proposition 65 (essentially a mechanism that forces industries to either conservatively assess the risks of carcinogens or reproductive toxicants, or eliminate them from their products, or else be forced to disclose their presence in very candid language) as a very blunt tool for risk communication or exposure reduction. When you have a substance such as benzene, which is present at a couple of percent level in gasoline, you wind up with Prop 65 warnings on every gasoline pump in the state. As a former California resident, I’ve seen the blizzard of warnings everywhere, and can attest that you tune them out after awhile.

What I found amusing in the Times article was the interview of Elizabeth Whelan at ACSH, who wondered if the attorney general’s focus on French fries and potato chips was a plot. Typical. I avoid eating French fries because they’re empty calories, but I suppose keeping the trans fats and a few micrograms of acrylamide out of my diet are collateral benefits.