Page 155 - How to Be a Conscious Eater - Making Food Choices That Are Good for You

though, try the classic kabob approach—for example, alter-
nating cubed chicken with sliced bell peppers, zucchini,
and onions, or a fruit twist such as peaches or pineapple.
4 Be mindful of the smoke itself. We all know it’s bad to inhale
cigarette smoke, but the same goes for smoke from a grill.
Try not to breathe in too much, especially if you’re the grill-
master or nice enough to keep the grillmaster company.
5 Avoid char. Take this piece of advice in particular with a
substantial dose of radical practicality: No one is asking
you to scrape the grill marks off your chicken breast one
by one. But sometimes that black, crispy char is easy to
remove before eating or to simply avoid—picture the bony
edges of ribs or steak. You’re best off trimming it or not bit-
ing into it since the crust is more likely to contain more of
these compounds. A related tip from the National Cancer
Institute is to flip often: If you regularly turn the meat
over while cooking it on the grill,
you can reduce the amount of
HCAs that are formed. And to
get rid of the char from last
weekend’s party, clean your
grill grates each time.

6 Leverage herbs and spices.
Research also suggests that
cooking your meat with ingredi-
ents high in antioxidants—such
as certain herbs, spices, teas, and
chile peppers—can mitigate the
amount of potentially carcino-
genic compounds that get formed.

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