Are there carcinogens in grilled foods?
Short answer: yes. Long answer: depends on what you're cooking.


  Grilling some popular food items can produce cancer-causing compounds called heterocyclic amines (HCAs)
  
  HCAs, a family of mutagenic and cancer-causing compounds, are produced during the cooking of many animal products, including chicken, beef, pork, and fish. In January of 2005, the federal government officially added HCAs to its list of known carcinogens.
  
  Cancer Project nutritionists determined that many commonly grilled foods contain alarmingly high levels of HCAs. This table lists the five foods containing the highest levels.
  
  


(Source: Cancer Project/The Five Worst Foods to Grill)