WASHINGTON – Not to rain on your parade, but a danger may be lurking in your outdoor plans for the weekend.

It’s your grill, and if you’re not careful how you cook food, there could be a greater cancer risk.

Debra Kotz, health blogger for The Boston Globe, says the risk comes “when you have blackened meat, blackened chicken … but also blackened vegetables.”

She says that while, yes, they taste great, grilling especially fatty meats is the most troublesome because they’re the ones that cause “flare-ups” that char the food. That’s what the American Cancer Society says invites carcinogens into the body.

“Turn the heat down a little bit and cook it at a lower temperature over a longer period so you’re not burning the food,” says Kotz.

Or she suggests trying another method.

“Cook it in your oven a little bit, and then put it on the grill at a later stage so that it cooks most of the way through and you’re just grilling it at the very end,” Kotz says.

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