French fries aren't exactly on the That's Fit healthy menu, buuuuut sometimes a little reward is well worth the temporary departure from your diet. Nevertheless, calories and blood sugar spikes aside, we definitely don't want our fries to contain known carcinogens. So, if you're going to break from your diet for a few chips, don't risk cashing in everything in the process.

To safeguard your health, be sure to soak your potatoes in water before frying them, says a new study in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. Doing so can stop the formation of acrylamide, a cancer-causing compound that is produced naturally when starchy foods are cooked at temperatures above 248 degrees Fahrenheit.

Researchers discovered that the longer you allow your potatoes to soak in water, the less chance they have to form the carcinogen. For example, the study revealed that just washing raw French fries, soaking them for 30 minutes or soaking them for two hours reduced the formation of acrylamide by up to 23 percent, 38 percent and 48 percent respectively

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Did you know that frying starchy foods can produce a cancer-causing substance? Me neither. It turns out that when starchy foods such as potatoes are cooked at high temperatures acrylamide is created. So when you fry, bake, grill, or roast potatoes you could be generating potentially harmful carcinogens.

A British study reveals that simply soaking potatoes can greatly reduce acrylamide and any subsequent health issues it could cause. Specifically, if the potatoes are washed the levels were reduced by as much as 23%. If soaked for 30 minutes, levels decreased up to 38%. And the decrease rose to 48% when the potatoes were soaked for two hours.

Martha recently showed us why potatoes don't really deserve their bad rep. If you want to create a healthy potato side dish, try some of these recipes from Prevention.

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Are you a fried food lover? Although fried foods smell an taste fantastic -- usually due to chemical taste enhancers and MSG -- there's an important byproduct that seems to make the rounds in popularity amongst the health-conscious nutrition crowd (at least in the circles I participate in). That one byproduct? Acrylamide. But, wait a minute -- is acrylamide found in over-baked (non-fried) foods as well?

We don't want to think about it, but high cooking temps + high-carb foods = the chemical acrylamide. In this table from the FDA's website, there are quite a few samples of grocery store and fast food products where testing for the presence of acrylamide was performed. Holy smokes -- literally -- some of the acrylamide levels in fast food french fry products were, well, way (way) above what I would consider healthy.

Although it's very tough to find a diet that's completely acrylamide-free -- without being a raw vegan -- there are steps most of us can take to reduce acrylamide intake. My routine is to carry this guide with me and have pre-defined categories of foods that generally contains higher levels of acrylamide so I know what to avoid when the chance presents itself. For those social situations where eating a little out of your comfort zone is required, having a little pre-knowledge can be a great thing.

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