How Does Cooking Affect Raw Foods?

 

This is part three of a nutritional health article on foods and diets that can either result in renewed health or the tearing down of health. Read part one on food and your health

Related article: Diets and Weight Loss

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What Cooking Does to Food:

When food molecules are heated it is not only the toxins that are destroyed. Heat indiscriminately destroys toxins, vitamins, and any other complex molecules. The food’s entire structure changes.

A simple example is a clear egg albumin turning white as the heated protein is denatured. As this process continues, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates degrade and recombine in nearly infinite variety. 

The more radically affected protein and carbohydrate molecules change color to black or brown. These darkened particles are generically called Maillard particles.  Maillard particles are simply random compounds formed by cooking. 

It is clear that food changes radically during heat processing. It would be extremely unlikely that all of these changes were positive or that humans had time to fully evolve and overcome all of the negative aspects.  

There have been a vast number of claims regarding the damage which cooking does to food. These include destruction of enzymes, creation of toxins, destruction of beneficial nutrients/phytochemicals, and allowance of poisonous and sub-optimal food sources into the general diet. As with any dietary controversy, we could endlessly analyze each side’s argument. There are easier ways however.

Societies have empirically adjusted to dietary changes. Over thousands of years, most cultures develop standard diets and food preparation methods based on trial and error. This knowledge represents the cumulative experience of millions of individuals over hundreds of generations.   

Rather than theorize or conduct limited studies, it is almost always simpler and more effective to learn what our ancestors traditionally ate and how they prepared their food. 

It is also important to recognize that every sub-population and individual has genetic variability. It is necessary to keep an open mind, experiment, and follow your instincts in order to arrive at an optimal individual diet for yourself at any given period of your life.  conclusion: traditional diets and cooking    

To learn much greater detail regarding traditional dietary and health practices, you can read The Real Story of Money, Health, and Religion, by Loren Howe available in paperback or $1.25 download at LuLu Online Bookstore