Eat meat with rosemary, avoid cancer

“Put a little bit on the surface. Rosemary extracts shouldn’t have much of an aroma to them. Most people don’t want a rosemary-flavoured burger. So if you get the extract you don’t really know it’s there,” Smith said.

Smith’s findings began with research into commercial rosemary extracts’ effect on stopping HCAs from forming in cooked beef patties. His research group found that the HCAs were reduced in levels ranging from 30 to 100 per cent.

The presence of HCAs is a potential problem in cooked beef. The likelihood of their presence is influenced by cooking time and temperature.

Although lower temperatures and shorter cooking times can reduce the risk of HCA formation, those alternatives have their own problems. Lower temperatures can affect the taste adversely, Smith explained, noting that commercial steak houses cook at temperatures above 400 degrees F.