Last night I heated some extra virgin olive oil and fried chopped potatoes, onion and asparagus. After a few moments I tossed in some spinach leaves and chopped tomato, then poured over beaten eggs. A sprinkle of cheese and a light grill to brown the top and voila – yummy frittata for an easy Sunday evening meal. The big question is have I increased my risk of getting cancer by frying in olive oil?

“Exposure to second-hand cigarette smoke or going outside without sun-block is much more likely to cause cancer than burning your cooking oil,” writes fats and oils expert, Laurence Eyres, in the October/November issue of Food New Zealand – the official journal of the NZ Institute of Food Science and Technology. But what about all those cancer causing chemicals – polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons – that are formed when we burn cooking oil? It’s true that when oil is repeatedly heated to its smoking point it will begin to accumulate cancer causing substances and lose its natural antioxidants. But who uses the same oil over and over again, especially when we’ve burnt it? We usually just heat and eat.

When researchers feed ‘severely heat-abused frying fats’ (more than we would ever do at home) to some poor experimental animals there are ‘very few deleterious effects’. In fact olive oil is especially stable because it is monounsaturated. Extra virgin olive oil is even better than a lower quality olive oil because it has more natural antioxidants to soak up nasty free radicals. And good news for those of us who love New Zealand extra virgin olive oil. Compared to overseas olive oils it has more antioxidants and a higher smoking point, so you can heat it hotter before it starts to burn.

Bowel cancer is one of the most common cancers in New Zealand and on a world ranking we’re way up there. Around 2500 New Zealanders develop bowel cancer each year and about 1000 die.

Considering there are just over 4 million of us, it’s pretty high. Bowel cancer is not so common in Maori people but those who do develop it are less likely to be diagnosed and therefore more likely to die.

Bowel cancers begin as polyps. As you can see in the picture, taken at virtual colonoscopy, these are small growths that can enlarge within your bowel on a stalk. As they grow bigger, the more chance there is of one of these turning into a killer -  a malignant cancer.

Bowel cancer is more common as you age but it’s never too early to get into healthy habits to cut your risk. Here’s the top 4 ways…

1. Physical activity
2. Fibre especially from wholegrains and fruit
3. Garlic
4. Calcium – have some low fat milk and yoghurt each day

From a diet perspective, here are the top 4 ways to increase your risk of bowel cancer?

1. Obesity, especially around the stomach
2. Processed meat such as sausages and salami
3. Red meat – it’s great for iron and zinc but keep it to less than 500 grams a week
4. Alcohol

Dug these stories up while surfing around the web…

Supermarket ad trials: your shopping trolley knows what you want — In a move that brings new meaning to the expression “taking the thinking out of shopping”, advertising will be delivered directly to supermarket trolleys based on a shopper’s in-store behaviour and purchasing history.

It could make shopping more entertaining but I prefer to choose my groceries without my trolley telling me what to buy!