Presence of heterocyclic amine carcinogens in home-cooked and fast-food camel meat burgers commonly consumed in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Heterocyclic amines (HCAs) are formed by cooking protein-rich foods, for instance, meat and fish, and are listed as possible human carcinogens. In the present study, the presence of five potential HCAs (IQ, MeIQ, MeIQx, 4,8-DiMeIQx, and PhIP) in cooked camel meat burgers was analyzed for the first time. The analysis was performed in home-cooked and fast-food burger samples containing food additives. The applied cooking technique for the home-cooked samples was pan frying for a controlled cooking time and temperature. In the control cooked meat samples (samples that contained no food additives), the concentrations of MeIQx, 4,8-DiMeIQx, and PhIP ranged from 2.47 ng/g to 4.89 ng/g, whereas IQ and MeIQ were found to be below the limit of quantification. The concentrations contents of MeIQx, 4,8-DiMeIQx, and PhIP in the home-cooked and fast-food samples ranged from 1.52 ng/g to 2.13 ng/g and 1.85 ng/g to 3.46 ng/g, respectively. IQ and MeIQ were not detected in either type of sample. In comparison to the control samples, the home-cooked and fast-food samples produced lower levels of HCAs. Such observations could result from the existence of antioxidants in incorporated food additives, which induce pro-oxidative effects with the successive formation and/or scavenging of free radicals.

Occurrence of Heterocyclic Amines in Commercial Fast‐Food Meat Products Available on the Chinese Market and Assessment of Human Exposure to these Compounds

“…A similar IQ level was reported by Lu et al. () in ready‐to‐eat meat products, whereas in another study, IQ was not detected in home‐cooked and fast‐food camel meat burgers (Rizwan Khan, Naushad, & Abdullah Alothman, ). MeIQ was the most abundant HCA and detected in all fast‐food meat products, except the chicken strips with cumin, as shown in Table .…”

A Comprehensive Review on the Formation of Carcinogens from Food Products with Respect to Different Cooking Methods

“…They also reported that 80% of all cancers in humans are caused due to environmental factors associated with food, air and water [41]. A very interesting study conducted by a group of scientists from Saudi Arabia [42] revealed that the presence of antioxidants in food additives can provide pro-oxidative effects to the home cooked samples and fast food due to which IQ and MelQ contents are found in very low concentration in the cooked camel meat burgers and related foods consumed in middle east countries. This suggests that food products and additives having some antioxidant properties can help to prevent harmful chain reactions in body which in turn can also reduce the carcinogenic capacity of the cooked food samples [40].…”

“…In contrary to that, laboratory of biotechnology, USA. [42] reported that the formation of acrylamide, a chemical used to make copolymers like polyacrylamide in many industrial processes such as production of plastic and dyes can also be found in many fried and oven cooked foods and their formation had absolutely no affect by the presence of phenolic antioxidants. These indicate that the formation of acrylamide is nonoxidative in nature.…”

Heterocyclic aromatic amines in food as mutagenesis factors

“…Braising, boiling, and baking generally do not form HAAs (Canfield & Bradshaw, 2019). Although food appears to be the primary source of human exposure to heterocyclic amines, they are present in smoke from food (Khan et al, 2017;Oz, 2020), cigarette smoke (Konorev et al, 2015;Sasaki et al, 2001), and ambient air (Robbana-Barnat et al, 1996).…”

“…Heterocyclic amines have an exocyclic amino group and several nitrogen heteroatoms. Structures of these compounds have been found in food, and the entire set of HAA compounds has been the subject of several recent reviews (Khan et al, 2017;Woziwodzka et al, 2013). Some studies have shown the effect of cooking time and temperature on the mutagenic activity (Zhong et al, 2018) and specific HAAs in different meats (Ali et al, 2019;Doeun et al, 2017).…”