Food Standards Agency is urging cooks to move away from fried, baked and toasted foods and not serve anything more than a light golden yellow.
The warnings are based on concerns about consumption of the chemical acrylamide, which is caused by the browning process.
It also advises people to eat more boiled, mashed and steamed foods, and urges them to stop storing potatoes in the fridge, which leads to a chemical change called cold sweetening that increases acrylamide.
