I try to avoid / limit grilled and smoked food. It seems clear to me that putting charred food and food specifically infused with smoke would be bad for you, just as smoking is bad for you. Don’t need science to tell me.
(To head off the usual argument about allergies, you can replace flour in the above statement with any neutral powder, such as cornstarch or potato starch or baking soda or sugar or salt.)
It’s valid to consider systemic toxins, but if this was a systemic toxin issue, it wouldn’t only be their colon that’s affected, it would also be affecting their lungs, even if they only consumed it.
No one is saying smoke inhalation is harmless. But to conclude it shouldn't be ingested based on this fact alone is dubious.
So that’s my point - if you think smoke is bad for your lungs, it’s probably bad for your colon too!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...
And then a bunch of the compounds present in the smoke, that would get absorbed in the lungs, are not going to concentrate in the meat (anything with a low vapor pressure will mostly be driven off and exhausted out of the grill/smoker/etc).
It's true that burnt food is a carcinogen and you shouldn't go out of your way to eat burnt food.