Welcome to Dishing of Nutrition's Ask a Nutritionist podcast, brought to you by nutritional weight

and wellness. On today's show, I'll be answering a nutrition question we received from one of our

Dishing Up Nutrition listeners. So today we'll be answering a nutrition question we received from one of our Dishing of Nutrition listeners.

So today we'll be discussing the topic of whether or not eating burnt food or smoked foods can increase your risk for cancer.

So the original question was, I recently lightly burned my, and my spouse told me not to eat it because that black char is an oxidant.

I had not even thought about foods that were oxidants.

We just always hear about antioxidants.

So, do black charred marshmallows or charred vegetables also carry oxidants? So I thought this was a

pretty interesting question, especially as we're entering grilling season. This might actually be

on some of your minds lately. And along those same lines, another listener wrote, are smoked foods

like smoked salmon or smoked ribs, safe to eat. So I'm going to try to tackle these questions

today so that you can feel confident in how you're preparing your food and know that it is safe.

And this time of year, as we're entering the summer,

grilling and barbecuing is a lot more popular. And I think it's a great way to cook and it's a

great way to spend time outside. And I really want to encourage you all to do it. So I'm going to

let you in on some tips how to prevent

food from being overcooked, which can damage the food and actually create some issues. And I know it can

be visually appealing to see those little char marks or those grill marks on a nice piece of steak

or some vegetables.

And I know a lot of people really love the flavor of those charred bits.

Maybe, you know, for example, the burnt ends of a brisket.

But let's talk about what happens chemically when you cook food to the point of it being

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