Zeolite filters out carcinogens to make tastier smoked foods

Car manufacturers have used zeolites for years to filter pollutants from exhaust fumes. Now, researchers at the University of Reading in the UK have shown that this technology could help cut levels of carcinogens in smoked foods and make them tastier too. Just as car companies have used zeolites to reduce environmental pollutants, lead researcher and flavour chemist Jane Parker and colleagues have optimised filters made from zeolites, a porous aluminosilicate mineral, to remove carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from the smoking process for foods.