Raw Versus Cooked Food For Healthy Eating

 
Why should one cook? It seems like a waste of time if some people are to believed; it destroys nutrients and wastes energy. Eating raw is the natural way, the way nature intended the food to be eaten. It sounds fancily accurate enough to convince many people, but is it the truth?

Nature’s intentions

If we go according to what we know, it is presumptuous to assume that nature produces food to be consumed by humans, or that it does anything with the intention of benefiting us humans. We have been here on this planet for an infinitesimal fraction of time, nature was here much earlier, and it has produced a lot of stuff that will kill us if we consume it. Of course, this whole argument collapses if you don’t believe what the guys sitting in their fancy labs are proving.

Nutrient loss

Baking or frying food at high temperatures does indeed result in some loss of nutrients, a chunk of water soluble vitamins are lost when food is cooked, especially when it is overcooked. But then, in numerous cases cooking also destroys anti-nutrients that inhibit the process of absorption of nutrients in the gut. 

Also, the loss of nutrients is nowhere close to the high percentages proclaimed by the proponents of raw food diets. Take for example raw broccoli and steamed broccoli, close to 25% vitamin C and 20% selenium present in raw broccoli was destroyed during cooking, however, all the other common nutrients showed minimal change.

In case of some vegetables such as asparagus and carrots, and the red fruit tomato, cooking increases the availability of some the advantageous antioxidants present in them. Eating cooked asparagus will give you more ferulic acid than the raw ones; cooked carrots will provide more beta-carotene, which is converted to vitamin A. Cooking tomatoes breaks down the cell walls, increasing the absorption of lycopene.

Breakdown of enzymes while cooking

Another misconception of some of the raw food proponents is that the breakdown plant enzymes, which happens when they are overcooked, increases the amount enzymes required in digesting them. Even though the plant enzymes are beneficial for us, they do not speed up the process of digestion when consumed; they are absorbed by our digestive juices, like other nutrients.

In fact, vegetable soups and steamed vegetables are easier to digest; the cell structure of the plant is altered by cooking, cellulose is also broken down, which means that fewer enzymes are required to digest them.

Cooking meats

Not only is cooking meats essential in order to minimize the chances of food poisoning, research has shown that cooked meat, and also cooked sweet potatoes, provide more energy than the raw ones. The preference tests conducted on hungry mice showed that they had a strong preference towards cooked food. It is highly doubtful that that was because of the seasonings they put on the cooked food. It suggests that the subjects were aware of the energy benefits of eating cooked food.

So cooking is better than eating raw?

It is not possible to answer this question with a straight forward yes or no. Cooking meat, poultry and seafood is definitely beneficial and should be the preferred method. However, when it comes to vegetables and fruits, it essential to eat them in sufficient quantity. Some vegetables and fruits are better off cooked, some are not.

Unless you are open to put in the effort and make a chart for the better way to consume the common produce, or pay someone to do it for you, eating a variety of produce is what matters. If you have trouble eating raw broccoli, you will still gain a majority of benefits by eating steamed broccoli.

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