Random Food Myths (17 items)

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  (#1) Adding Salt to Boiling Water Makes It Boil Faster

  This is a persistent myth that's believed by both home cooks and professional chefs. While it is technically true, practically speaking, it's not. Adding salt to water will change its boiling point, but only by a tiny fraction. You'd need to add so much salt to a pot of water that it would ruin whatever you're cooking.
  
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  (#5) Seared Meat Keeps Its Juices In

  It's actually just the opposite. The idea of searing meat to seal in its juice stems from a 19th century experiment conducted using two pieces of meat, one of which had been soaked in water before it was grilled. Naturally, this meat was wetter than the meat that had simply been grilled. In reality, seared meat is actually less moist than grilled meat. If you like the taste of seared meat, that's great and what you should eat - just not for its moistness.
  
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  (#11) Pork Must be Overcooked to Avoid Parasites

  This used to be true, but isn't really anymore. The risk of contracting the parasite trichinosis has all but vanished in the United States thanks to food safety regulations, regular inspections, and better hygiene. The USDA has actually reduced the minimum safe temperature for pork to from 165 degrees to 145 in response to the reduced risk of trichinosis. You still don't want to eat pork raw, but you don't need to blast it into dry, gray oblivion.
  
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  (#17) If You Can't Pronounce It, Don't Eat It

  This is simplistic chemphobia that became popular thanks to food writer and activist Michael Pollan. In an NPR story from 2008, he advised readers: “Don’t buy products with more than five ingredients or any ingredients you can’t easily pronounce.” Because of this, we've been left with a notion that "chemicals" are always bad, and "natural" things, i.e., free of chemicals, are always good.
   
  But this doesn't take into account that everything is made of chemicals, and that many extremely important chemical compounds, amino acids, and vitamins have long, hard-to-pronounce names. If, for example, you see "Cyanocobalamin" on an ingredients list and avoid it, you're avoiding a form of vitamin B12. Likewise, if "Eicosapentaenoic acid" scares you, you're worried about an omega 3 fatty acid that's good for your brain. Foods should be eaten or avoided based on their nutritional contents, not the number of letters in some of their ingredients.
  
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  (#4) Grilling Meat Can Lead to Cancer

  This myth seems to stem from the discovery of small amounts of the chemical acrylamide - a compound used in a number of industrial and manufacturing contexts - in some burned foods. While acrylamide has been linked to nervous system toxicity and fertility issues, you'd have to eat so much grilled meat to have a problem that you'd be dead long before you had any toxicity issues. Not to mention that acrylamide is found naturally in many foods.
  
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  (#13) Perioidic Fasting Cleanses the Body of Toxins

  This is wrong on a number of levels - and dangerous. It's important to point out that the advocates of cleansing "toxins" are never able to point out what a toxin is or what it does to you - only that you're full of them. But from a scientific standpoint, your body already has a perfectly designed system to cleanse itself of toxic material. It's your kidneys and liver. As long as you're going to the bathroom at regular intervals, eating a well-balanced diet, and exercising, you're doing everything you need to get rid of toxins - and no fasting, juice cleanse, or fad diet will help you do that.
  

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