How burnt toast and roast potatoes became linked to cancer

Advice that overcooked starchy foods can contain acrylamide, a chemical liked to cancer, has caused a furore this week. Is it just another health scare?

In October 1997, something troubling was happened around the HallandsaIs ridge in southwestern Sweden. Farmers had found cows paralysed or dead in their fields, lifeless fish were spotted floating in a local river and workers at a construction site began suffering from nausea and prickling sensations in their fingers.

Suspicion fell on a major construction project to drill a railway tunnel through the ridge. The project had been plagued by leaks and the construction company had resorted to injecting 1,400 tons of a sealant called Rhoca-Gil into tunnel walls. Tests confirmed that the sealant had leaked high levels of a toxic chemical into surrounding ground and surface water. The chemical was acrylamide.