Wai World  

Smoking and Food

NB: For the sake of simplicity "cigarette(s)" or "cigarette smoke" is used, although similar conclusions can be drawn for other tobacco-based products.

Introduction
Nowadays it is widely accepted that smoking is bad for one's health. It is an addictive habit, and its correlation to cancer has been proven scientifically. Even though the addictive mechanism (as well as the exact role of nicotine) isn't yet understood completely, it is known that cigarette smoke contains physically addictive substances (beta-carbolines). In addition to the addictive substances present in tobacco itself, extra addictive substances are added to cigarettes by the manufacturers. Cigarette smoke also contains damaging chemical compounds (mutagenic heterocyclic amines (see below)), which could be the cause of the health problems attributed to smoking.

Cigarettes and prepared (non-raw, or heated) food have more in common than most people know. Prepared food, like cigarettes, contains physically addictive beta-carbolines, addictive additives, and also mutagenic heterocyclic amines (see below).

People who quit smoking often compensate the loss of addictive substances from the cigarettes with those in prepared food, which explains why so many overeat, and thus gain weight after quitting.

Addictive additives
Many prepared food products contain added milk (protein) and/or wheat (protein), for no apparent reason. Wheat is the most used grain in food products. Even some meat products contain wheat protein.

Cow's milk protein includes addictive opioid peptides (1). This addictive property is the reason it's added to many food products. Formula milk is one of these products, that makes children addicted to cow's milk protein at a very young and vulnerable age, ensuring a future market for milk protein containing products. Third world countries are an increasing market for formula milk, so food companies are pressing women in those countries to give their babies formula milk instead of mother's milk. Of course the huge quantities of powdered milk in humanitarian food aid supplies also help.

Wheat protein also contains very potent opioid peptides (2), sometimes even 100 times more powerful than morphine. (3) Like milk protein, wheat (protein) is used in, or added to many food products as an effective addictive compound.

Adding both milk and wheat protein is even more effective.

By heating wheat and milk proteins, they are becoming even more resistant to being broken down by our digestive enzymes. Such slightly (chemically) altered opioid peptides can be extremely hard to decompose, either due to their unnatural composition, or because they directly inhibit digestive enzyme activity. (4)

Heating protein (together with carbohydrates) originates new substances, HeteroCyclic Amines (HCAs), which can have mutagenic and carcinogenic properties. Some of these HCAs are beta-carbolines, and many of these beta-carbolines also inhibit enzymes that decompose opioid peptides. (5) Beta-carbolines are also addictive, directly (6) or indirectly. (7)

Taste enhancers for example are concentrated dehydrated proteins, containing lots of beta-carbolines. They therefore don't exactly 'enhance taste' but feed addiction, by influencing neurotransmitter receptors. (8) To create very effective 'taste enhancers', some protein (preferably wheat or milk protein) is mixed with sugars, and then heated thoroughly.

Food manufacturers of course know all this. Years ago, a Nestlé spokesman declared that "food manufacturers could use this information to sell more food". (9)

Mutagenic and carcinogenic compounds
Prepared food contains a lot of different co-mutagenic and mutagenic heterocyclic amines, and so does cigarette smoke. Some examples:

  Cigarette smoke contains Prepared food contains
  beta-carbolines (10) beta-carbolines (11)
  Trp-P-1 (12) Trp-P-1 (13)
  Trp-P-2 (14) Trp-P-2 (15)
  4-aminobiphenyl (16) 4-aminobiphenyl (17)
  MeIQx (12) MeIQx (18)
  Glu-P-1 (19) Glu-P-1 (20)

Mutagenic heterocyclic amine concentration in prepared food can be much higher than in cigarette smoke. For example: 100 grams (3.5 oz.) of prepared meat contains as much of the mutagenic compound AalphaC as the smoke of 812 cigarettes, and as much of the even more mutagenic MeAalphaC as the smoke of 1,050 cigarettes! (21)

Conclusion
Cigarettes can be dangerous to our health, but prepared food can be even more dangerous, because it is absorbed in greater quantities.



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Abstracts of most sources can be found at the National Library of Medicine

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