Smoked foods are tastier, less harmful with a tip from the auto industry | Hacker News Reader

Smoked foods are tastier, less harmful with a tip from the auto industry

sciencedaily.com

181 pointscamtarn48 comments

> the researchers smoked tomato flakes, coconut oil and water using either filtered or unfiltered smoke. Then, they added the smoked tomato flakes to cream cheese and used the water to brine some chicken

Not that this disqualifies the results, but what an odd choice of tests.

> Not that this disqualifies the results, but what an odd choice of tests.

I would disagree: grilled tomatoes are a mainstay of a simple taste profile - very easy to distinguish acrid or "extra" flavors.

Coconut oil has a very high smoke point, and thus should pick up any flavor from the smoke without bringing anything to the plate itself - very easy to test flavors.

Water, well, if you've not had a cocktail with smoked ice, I'm afraid I can't help you :)

The point is that these choices provided more neutral mediums for the collection of smoke, as opposed to, say, trying to smoke meat or cheese, where the base ingredients may have just a little bit of different flavor.

as an aside, I have a chicken in the smoker right now, with a load of cherry wood, but would love to eliminate a few of those carcinogens.

I would experiment with liquid smoke in marinades and long, ‘wet’ cooking times (rotisserie if possible). But I’m a vegan now, so I just get to put the liquid smoke directly into my seitan ;)

Definitely buy the most liquid smoke you can reasonably store and use. A gallon or a quart has been maybe 10% the cost of similar volumes purchased in smaller bottles.

Also, I’m considering deleting my comment thanks to the downvotes. I’m guessing it’s because I revealed I’m a vegan, despite the fact that I made valid cooking suggestions for meat. Nothing about anything I said was judgemental.

I didn't downvote you, nor do I have any issue with you being a vegan, but will just point out that I personally don't care for liquid smoke - mostly because I find it boring compared to the woods I would normally use to smoke food with.

Yes still trying to figure that one out. It’s pretty complex. I’m thinking browning/burning the edges and an extra Smokey sauce.

Have you tried smoking some mushrooms and using them as a smoked base? I’ve had smoked portobellos and the flavor profile was pleasingly meaty. You can also dry mushrooms and make them into a powder too add an almost msg-esque kick to food. I like to get some extra firm tofu, lightly salt it and put it on a rack with some paper toweling and a plate on top for a pan hour or to to drain and get even more firm. Then poach in oil at a lower temp. While it’s still hot, dredge in seasoned panko that you add mushroom powder to, and fry at high temp to crisp it up.

It’s awesome!

That's what I do, and for a more specific recommendation, powder dried shiitake and porcinis in equal weight in a spice mill or coffee grinder, then store in a medium-hole shaker. Add at the end of dishes for a savory boost.

Good on risotto, phillies, dusted over seasoned vegetables and sauces, on toast with butter, and pretty much anywhere else.

You've captured my interest with the smoked mushrooms, and I'm very curious to see how they can be used and processed.

I’ve not done the smoked mushroom thing yet but definitely plan to do so. Same with the tofu thing!

I add mushroom powder to my vegan “carne adovada” and liquid smoke as two very dark magic umami cheats. Mushroom powder is just crazy awesome.

Coconut oil has a much lower smoke point (177C) than most oils, even olive oil (212C). It also has a very detectable flavour, sunflower or canola are much more neutral.

I would expect a taste test to involve commonly smoked items like salmon, meat, chicken, ribs, cheese or vegetables.

only unrefined coconut oil, refined is 450ºF (232ºC) - they don't state which they used in the tests, though.

This might be a little off topic, but refined coconut oil is the gold standard oil for popping corn. Buy a tub of it and some Flavacol seasoning and you can make cinema popcorn that’s fresh and delicious. The very high smoke point makes coconut oil ideal for frying chips as well, although moderation is important. It’s also the best for frying shrimp!

I'll bite on the off-topic part: I'm more of a fan of peanut oil for those use cases, but I also tend to fall on the side of peanut-fried kettle chips (for instance, I thought that the original Tim's cascade style chips were much better than the current recipe).

Peanut oil is also a great choice, especially for chips and fries. It does add more of a taste than coconut oil, but hey, it’s a good taste. Peanut oil is also the best for stir frying, with a shot of sesame oil to finish it.

+1 for using coconut oil with popping corn. I like to squeeze a little lime juice and sprinkle cracked pepper on the warm pop corn. Awesome!

It is well known in the BBQ world that not all smoke is good smoke. In fact, one of the secrets/talents a great pit master must have is the ability to manage a fire to minimize or eliminate the plume of white smoke - that’s the stuff that tastes like ashes. The thin blue smoke from a properly tended hardwood fire is more flavorful and contains fewer carcinogens - it’s a big key to great Q.

It’d be a huge advancement to casual/home BBQ if these filters have a similar effect- although I’m sure many popular styles of smoker would need to be completely redesigned to support the addition of a filter...

The thin blue smoke from a properly tended hardwood fire is more flavorful and contains fewer carcinogens

Do you have any references for that? In the automotive world, blue smoke is worse than white smoke.

Seems unrelated. White smoke is usually antifreeze (head gasket blowout) and blue smoke is burning oil (more serious engine damage).

Burning coolant generally signals a worse problem that burning oil.

A cracked head gasket is a bad thing to have, it get a lot worse quite quickly.

Burning oil is fairly normal for an older car, it generally means your piston rings are getting a bit worn, perfectly normal for a 20+ year old car. The solution is generally to use a heavier oil.

Not my experience. Replacing head gaskets isn't cheap, but it's cheaper than a rebore and new rings. Thicker oil is a very short term band aid.

Yeah, it hasn't gone well those times i've used antifreeze to get the fire going when smoking my food.

Awesome! I wonder if anyone sells liquid smoke made using zeolite filters. I would buy it and use it in foods like sous vide brisket.

https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/08/food-lab-complete-guide-...

Isn’t liquid smoke already much safer? The carcinogens aren’t water soluble.

That was my first thought as well. Did you find anything?

So why don't industry cigarettes contain zeolite filters? Same question for activated charcoal filters. And don't say 'false sense of security', harm reduction is harm reduction is harm reduction.

Cigarettes are already expensive, that would make them a luxury item.

They’re only expensive because they’re so heavily taxed. Putting some of that money to consumer health in the form of more advanced filters would be great harm reduction.

That's not the right behavior to be encouraging at the macro public health level, though. The goal of the taxes is to discourage use, by making the cost outrageous, and while you can make them safer, ultimately you want to be discouraging their use entirely.

The taxes have the main goal of raising revenue for the government. Discouragement is just a side benefit.

That would depend on which government is doing the taxing. To the US states, tobacco taxes are revenue. For the Federal government, they are a policy measure.

>That's not the right behavior to be encouraging at the macro public health level, though. The goal of the taxes is to discourage use, by making the cost outrageous

And why's that the government's business exactly?

In a country that they actually offer free public healthcare, I'd understand it (sick people incur costs), but in the US and other such places, it's mostly the state playing nanny (even more so than the tax money).

Because people vote for it?

Smoking culture has a lot of knock on effects for third parties who aren't in a position to fix things themselves, children especially. I know; I grew up in a house with two smokers. Now I can scarcely handle visiting my parents' appartments.

>Because people vote for it?

Really, like you ever got asked to vote "for it"?

First, it's usually a wholesale vote: you only like this 1-2 things about the party's/candidate's platform?

Sorry, you're getting those 200 other things too. And there's just 2 parties, so pick wisely, lest you get the one you really don't want.

Not to mention that even for the things people explicitly vote for, they don't get. Empty promises is the name of the game...

>Smoking culture has a lot of knock on effects for third parties who aren't in a position to fix things themselves, children especially. I know; I grew up in a house with two smokers.

So, like almost everybody pre-90s? They seem to have come out alright...

> The cancer death rate for men and women combined fell 25% from its peak in 1991 to 2014

Attributed mainly to reduction in smoking.

Also, the biparty system is peculiar to the US. Other countries have more fine-grained political platforms, and mostly end up with similar policies. Public health is, well, a public matter.

It’s easier to have a sin tax than make an actual policy that requires years of research. Nobody explicitly voted for taxing cigarettes, but I do know that there was quite a bit of pressure to ban smoking in public areas.

Again, even that policy/ban doesn’t address the root cause, it only prevents people from suffering the effects of secondhand smoke.

> In a country that they actually offer free public healthcare, I'd understand it (sick people incur costs)

About ~50% of Americans are receiving health coverage or healthcare through the government. Whether Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, SS disability, VA services, or heavily subsidized ACA plans, etc.

Government in general is by far the single largest interested party in healthcare costs in the US at this point.

Didn't I just say "don't say 'false sense of security'"? :P

Zeolites are in cat litter and laundry detergents, they are made industrially at massive scale. Cost probably isn't the issue here.

Make the cigarette buds reusable then (and ban those one-time use buds, if possible).

E-cigarettes are already a thing.

So, who will be the first here to attach the closest available tailpipe/muffler to their smoker? I’d honestly be surprised if this hasn’t been thought of or done before.

The Grand Tour did it: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/on-demand/2018/02/16/grand-tour-...

Coal rolled kippers!

Nah. Zeolite is just kitty litter.

Swipe some from your cat.

Does this concern Lapsang Souchong (tea) as well?

I can see this being a real marketing thing for smoked salmon, makes me want to try it out in my smoker.

It looks like a smoked food company hired a researcher to investigate the health effects of smoked food. Surprise -- smoked food is tastier and less harmful than you thought!

Unfortunately, the actual research can't be examined during the PR campaign.

Did you even read the link? It's about how smoked food is carcinogenic, and that a specific new technique (that isn't widely used yet) can reduce that problem.

A delicious avenue of science!

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