by 
Massey
ANSWERS: 3
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According to http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050219/food.asp : "It's official. The federal government now has added agents commonly found in overcooked meat to the list of potential cancer causers..." The sites I found refer mostly to meat products being cooked with grilling/broiling methods... these methods tend to burn the outside of the meat (like you see with grill lines, or the whole piece of meat if you let the wrong person cook!) However- some other sites refer to burning cookies, some plant materials, potatoes... who knows what else. They say that the chemical produced when burning proteins causes cancer in laboratory rats. Well... first, they give the rats such a high dose of this chemical that, for a human, eating proportionally the same amount would be nearly impossible. Also, having had rats as pets, I know that rats develop cancerous tumors eating nothing but rat food. They get cancer from everything, and nothing. So I don't usually trust those kinds of comments. I think if we listen to all the rumors, it wont be "safe" to eat anything soon...
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Smoking and barbecuing foods so that they are slightly burnt on the outside causes chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons to form. These chemicals are known to help cause cancer. So in theory barbecuing or cooking over a high heat could increase the cancer risk. It’s not conclusive if burnt food causes cancer, yet at the same time burnt organic matter is known to be carcinogenic. Hydrocarbons are everywhere so the contribution to cancer by a small amount of burnt food would be very minimal.
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What if someone enjoyed eating burnt black toast, is that considered carcinogenic?
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