Does drinking coffee cause cancer? How is acrylamide, a carcinogen in coffee, produced?

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What you should know about food.

The roasting temperature of coffee can exceed 200 degrees, which is enough to produce acrylamide, but in fact, the content of acrylamide per 100 milliliters of coffee is only about 5 to 20 micrograms, moderate drinking will not cause harm to the human body.

Author = Fang Food Public Welfare Food Culture Education Foundation

In 2018, the California government announced that coffee products sold in California need to be marked with warnings related to acrylamide (acrylamide) to remind consumers that acrylamide will be consumed when drinking coffee. Acrylamide does have a certain degree of health concern. Many cell and animal experiments have found that acrylamide can destroy DNA, damage cells and cause cell cancer, but so far there is not enough epidemiological evidence. The carcinogenicity of acrylamide to humans cannot be established, so the World Health Organization has listed it as a class 2A carcinogen to remind acrylamide of potential health problems.

Acrylamide is the product of Mena reaction. "reducing sugar" reacts with "asparagine" at high temperature (more than 120 °C). The roasting temperature of coffee can exceed 200 degrees, which is high enough to produce acrylamide. therefore, drinking coffee does have a chance to ingest acrylamide. information from the European Food Safety Agency also shows that coffee is one of the major sources of acrylamide for adults in Europe.

However, there are many factors that affect the content of acrylamide in coffee processing, and if you master these factors, acrylamide can be greatly reduced:

1. Defective beans: the study found that immature coffee fruits have higher asparagine content in coffee beans, so more acrylamide will be produced in subsequent roasting.

2. Roasting degree of coffee: acrylamide needs raw materials to be formed, and the content of asparagine in coffee beans will be produced in large quantities in the early stage of baking, but when the temperature reaches more than 180 degrees in the middle stage of baking, acrylamide will decrease due to thermal degradation.

3. Brewing method: acrylamide is soluble in water, so cooking methods that shorten cooking time, such as "dripping", can reduce the dissolution of acrylamide, and the content of acrylamide in coffee liquid is also lower.

Although coffee contains acrylamide, in fact, per 100 milliliters of coffee, acrylamide content is only about 5 to 20 micrograms, if you are worried, you can drink the right amount, in the normal amount of drinking should not cause human harm.