How important is it for our health to eat cooked, warm food?
Would a diet comprised almost exclusively of fresh, uncooked (thus not warm) foods be better for us?
Diet & Fitness - 1 Answers
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1 :
I think what you are asking is whether there is any benefit to a raw food type diet. There are. First, most Americans eat way too much processed foods and don't get enough fiber. Raw food diets emphasize fruits, vegetables, nuts and sprouted grains which are extremely healthy. On the other hand, you don't need to go totally raw to get these benefits. Just add more of these foods into your diet. In terms of raw meats, while you could eat raw meat, there are clear health risks associated with doing so. True, the industrialization of meat production has resulted in terrible conditions that encourage the spread of pathogens like salmonella and e-coli, but even in "organic" farms you still can have contaminants. Cooking at least to medium rare will kill anything on the outside of the meat. Plus, I can tell you that in general, cooked meat tastes better than raw (the one exception might be steak tartare.) Raw food boosters will also frequently claim that cooking destroys plant enzymes. While this is true in some cases, these same enzymes will be destroyed in the stomach by the VERY inhospitable environment that is created thanks to all of that hydrochloric acid in there. Indeed, the acid in your stomach is more damaging to the enzymes in food than heat is. At the end of the day, there is zero scientific support that these plant enzymes have any impact on the human body -- they are enzymes that the plants used during growth, they weren't intended for humans. There are certain foods that are MORE nutritious when cooked versus served raw. Tomatos are a good example of this. The antioxident lycopene in tomatoes is actually better absorbed by the body when it's been heated (as combined with a fat like olive oil.) Additionally, foods like eggs can actually cause vitamin deficiencies when eaten raw (in the case of raw eggs, there is a chemical that can distrupt the absorption of biotin.) Cooking also helps break down certain substances and fibers in vegetables that ease digestion. That's not to say that heating doesn't destroy vitamins. Vitamin C is very unstable when heated, which is the reason why it's better to get it from uncooked, whole food source like oranges, grapefruit, cabbage slaw, etc. Best of luck
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