Are smoked foods such as beef jerky carcinogenic?

Reader’s Digest November 2006
While it is true that smoked and charred foods contain carcinogens, there is no firm evidence that the amounts people ingest are dangerous as most people don’t eat these foods regularly. Dr Edward Leyton, head of Kingston’s Integrative Medicine Clinic in Canada, says they know from lab tests that such foods are carcinogenic, “but no studies have been done on humans.” Polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons are the carcinogen found in smoked foods and are created when foods are burned. Charring is evidence of carcinogens, and Leyton recommends trimming blackened bits off meat or fish or, even better, cooking proteins at temperatures low enough to avoid charring altogether.