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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Wow. I stand corrected.

"The settlement requires the potato chip producers to reduce acrylamide to 275 parts per billion in three years, a low enough level to avoid a Prop. 65 warning label. That amounts to a 20 percent reduction for Frito-Lay and an 87 percent reduction for Kettle Chips, Brown's office said. Little or no reduction will be needed for most Cape Cod chips, but one product, Cape Cod Robust Russets, will require a warning label, the attorney general said."

from http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Lawsuit-over-potato-ch...

The acrylamide level of the potato increases as it browns. It appears the acrylamide level of these particular chips is therefore unavoidable.

Importantly: you are unlikely to avoid significant acrylamide production in home cooking. It's the potatoes that need the warning, not the chips.

My CIA cookbook begins potato recipes with first blanching them in water prior to roasting, sauté, etc, which is apparently an effective mitigation.

My understanding --- which is casual and mostly comes from Dave Arnold rants on Cooking Issues --- is that acrylamide is produced any time you brown a potato. So: you can eat boiled or mashed potatoes, sure, but if you roast them you're exposed.

This is equally true of meat, and other vegetables.

You essentially can't avoid acrylamide if you cook. Labeling it is silly.

Potatoes are worse than other foods because they have asparagine and starch together.

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/d...

So foods with less starch and/or less protein won't end up with as much acrylamide.

There's other carcinogens generated by high temperature cooking though, for example, https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/d...

I was not aware of the existence of a Culinary Institute of America, and assumed it was the Central Intelligence Agency.

"Why would the CIA have a cookbook..?"

McDonalds in California all have a prominent Prop 65 warning about acrylamide near checkout. Example: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T_-QObaB0sY/Tts3XPghilI/AAAAAAAAEL...

I haven't seen this in other venues that serve fried potato. I wonder if McDonalds was sued at some point.

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