AGEs and cooking

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

Thought this from the CrSociety list by Dan Manes on AGEs formation (unhealthy

protein to glucose cross links) in

cooking was worth sharing:

Since Dr. Helen Vlassera appears to be quite the AGE guru, I thought I'd ask

her a few questions that are of interest to me and hopefully many of you.

She forwarded them to her research dietician, Ms. Teresia Goldberg, who

provided some quick but interesting and perhaps useful answers. Thankfully,

she was more than willing to have me share her answers with all of you, so

here they are:

*Q* What cooking methods would you suggest for cooking poultry, fish, meat,

and eggs? I would suspect the best candidates would be steaming or poaching.

*A* Steaming and poaching are good. Boiling is also another good method for

low AGE food preparation Examples are meat balls cooked in sauce, boiled

chicken for in chicken soup and fish loaves or balls in a Jewish favorite

Gefilte fish.

*Q* When poaching, is there any evidence on whether it is better to, say,

simmer slowly for 20 minutes versus boil rapidly for 5 or 10?

*A* Both will be cooking a very similar temperatures so the shorter time is

better.

*Q* Would adding some wine or sherry while cooking greatly increase AGE

content? My understanding is that wine is very low in carbohydrates, so

perhaps it would be one way to make an AGE-reduced diet more palatable.

*A* Wine and juice marinades are very good to improve the flavor and do not

add AGEs

*Q* I would hope that steaming vegetables in a steamer or microwave is a

fairly safe practice since most tend to be relatively low in carbohydrates.

Is this a reasonable assumption?

*A* Yes. Microwaving of meats, poultry and fish is o.k. if done for short

periods that is adequate to produce a cooked product. The problem is that

there is a very short time window when the food is overcooked and the AGE

content then increases.

*Q* Have you ever measured the AGE content of typical store bought yogurt?

My understanding is that yogurt is heated for quite a long time (but

probably not a very high temperature) during the fermentation process, which

sounds like it might be problematic. (Conversely, I believe pasteurisation

involves a very quick exposure to high heat, so would likely cause minimal

damage.)

*A* We've tested Danonn vanilla, cherry and lite strawberry. All were very

low AGE foods. Puddings both instant and the ready made were also low.

Pasteurisation does not appear to promote AGE production.

*Q* I would think you would recommend against use of very slow cooking

methods, like stews in a crock pot, slow simmering soups, etc. Is this

correct?

*A* I don't have any information on foods prepared in a crockpot. I expect

that the longer time involved would promote AGE production

Ms. Goldberg's permission and credentials:

You can certainly share this information.

Terry Goldberg, MS, RD, CDE

Research Dietitian

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Good health & long life,

Greg ,

http://optimalhealth.cia.com.au