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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I posted on an article once before about the cancer-causing chemical 1,4 Dioxane being present in many personal care products like shampoos, body washes, bar soaps, etc. It's definitely not a completely new concept that our showers and baths are full of dangerous by-products, but I can't help but be bothered by the fact that although I'm grateful people are reporting these things, what exactly can we do about it? We got the bad news already, give us some ideas for solutions!

So I was encouraged today when I came across this link on how to find the safest and healthiest products -- finally something useful! And not only can I make a point to buy shampoo, make up, and other products with the "lowest concern" rating, but having lists like this out there for consumers may help motivate the manufacturers to give this issue some increased attention. So where does your favorite shampoo rank on the list?

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