Safe Grilling Strategies

If you're like most people, then you probably do a lot of your summer cooking outdoors on the grill. While grilling is an incredibly lean way to cook, it does have a dark side. Cooking food over a high, open flame can produce carcinogens, or cancer-causing substances. But before you hang up your spatula, there are a few things you can do to safeguard yourself and still enjoy grilled chicken, burgers and other favorites. Use these tips to grill safely:

• Marinate meats. Using a homemade marinade, scientists from Lawrence Livermore Labs in Livermore, California, got rid of 95 percent of harmful compounds called Heterocyclic amines (HCAs) in poultry. (These compounds are found in blackened or charred meats.) Experts think the marinade may help cool down the meat. Any oil-and-vinegar marinade should do the trick.

• Flip often. Another study from Livermore Labs found that turning burgers every minute reduced HCA formation by up to 99 percent compared to burgers that were flipped every five minutes.

• Nuke food first. Zapping meat to a half-cooked state before grilling removes some of the substances that react to heat and reduces the chances of creating HCAs.

• Stay cool. Cook food on the cooler part of the grill by moving it to the edge or to a spot where food won't drip on the heat source. If your grill has a dual burner, turn one burner off and cook on the other side.

• Stop smoking. Food isn't the only source of health-harming compounds. You can also find polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, in barbecue smoke. Anything that makes the grill smokier, like fat that drips from the food and hits the flame, causes more smoke--and more of these compounds. If you reduce the amount of fat that drips onto the grill by choosing lean meat, fish and white meat poultry, you'll reduce the amount of PAHs that are created.