Listen, when science tells you to do something, I’m not going to argue. And so if chemists says marinating meat in beer before you cook it to help kill potentially scary carcinogens, well, we’re listening. Because let’s face it, there’s a high possibility that you’ll have beer hanging around that summer barbecue (if summer ever shows its sunny face, sigh).

A team of European scientists wrote in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry that beer marinades provide a great way to cut down on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, as the science folk call’em), reports PSMag.com.

That’s the stuff that forms on meat when it’s cooked over open flames, “mainly, by contact of dripping fat with hot embers.” Because that substance can be carcinogenic, some health experts recommend limiting exposure to PAHs.

It sounds like researchers had a somewhat tasty time with this experiment, using pork loin steaks from a grocery store and marinating some in beer baths of varying types and others without anything as a control group.

According the findings, black beer did the best out of the three, reducing net weight of total PAHs by 53%. Next in line were non-alcoholic pilsners at 25% reduction and regular pilsner at 13%.

We’re sure you’ve stopped reading at this point because “grilled meat” and “beer,” but hey, at least now you have a scientific excuse for dousing that steak in a fine brew.

Chemists Endorse Marinating Meat With Beer [PSMag.com]

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