PORTO, Portugal—Marinating beef in green tea may reduce the levels of potentially cancer-promoting compounds, according to a study published in Food Chemistry.
For the study, researchers steeped one gram of green tea in 125 ml of boiling tap water for 10 minutes to create a catechin-rich marinade. Beef samples were marinated and pan-fired at 180 to 200 C for 4 minutes each side. Compared with the unmarinated samples, beef marinated in green tea for six hours showed up to a 75-percent reduction in levels of heterocyclic amines, which are reported to promote carcinogenesis in humans.
Further, two trained sensory panels tested the beef samples and revealed that no significant organoleptic differences existed between the unmarinated and green-tea marinated samples.
