A Different Kind Of Memorial Day BBQ

Memorial Day is just around the corner and for many, us included, is the unofficial start of summer. Of course, as I’m writing this it’s 55* and raining, but I’m sure by this weekend the weather will finally be under control (fingers crossed).

Memorial weekend also means the first time many people can bust out their grills and start barbecuing. Last year I talked about how this is a tradition of ours and what we grill. However, things have changed a bit around here, so I’ll have to come up with new fixings to grill, but more about that later.

Last year we used a charcoal grill for our Memorial Day BBQ. I knew it wasn’t the best type to use but it was what we had. The problem with that type of grill is that both charcoal and wood give off hydrocarbons, carcinogenic compounds and tiny soot particles that pollute the air.

Charcoal can contain nasty additives like sodium nitrate and petroleum products. That means, as the coals burn all that lovely nastiness gets deposited onto your food. You can find natural wood charcoal but you still need to double check the ingredients (I know ingredients on charcoal, weird) and also make sure that the wood is certified by the Rainforest Alliance so you know it’s been sustainably harvested.

You may have noticed that I referred to our grill in the past tense and that would be because when we moved last summer, the grill didn’t move with us. Not because we didn’t want it, we love to BBQ, but because, well, we couldn’t fit in on the moving truck. Yeah, the grill and a few other things became part of an impromptu yard sale right before we left.

So since we had to buy a new grill, and now had a little spending money thanks to the yard sale, we decided to go with a gas grill. Propane, while not perfect, burns much cleaner then charcoal or wood. A gas grill produces about 5.6 pounds of carbon per hour compared to 11 pounds for a charcoal grill. The house that we moved into is run almost entirely off gas and even has a gas BBQ outlet on the porch so we don’t even need to buy propane tanks for the grill, which is nice.


The sleeping giant
As far as toxins go though it turns out the type of grill isn’t the only thing I should have been worrying about. It turns out that when we were grilling our steaks potentially carcinogenic compounds like, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heterocyclic amines (HCAs) were being released onto our food. The fat dripping onto the coals and burning as well as when the meat gets charred is how the chemicals are formed.

Since I’m no longer eating meat the consumption by the rest of the family has gone way done as well. And while I'm sure Todd (and Tyler for that matter) would like steak this weekend, the chance of Todd not charring the meat is pretty low (love you honey!). So I’m thinking that this year we’re going to be having one big veggie BBQ. Even when we did meat we always did veggies as well, I just love grilled veggies! I’m thinking some nice big Portobello mushroom steaks, veggie kabobs and these BBQed artichokes. And for dessert, grilled pineapple, apples and pears. Ok, well I'm hungry now.

Are you planning on BBQing this weekend? What’s on your menu?