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The Mysteries Surrounding Cooked vs. Raw Food

  • Spence Cooper
  • April 9, 2009
a raw-food pizza..
A raw Food Pizza

I find the on-going debate regarding raw versus cooked food interesting — so does science, apparently, which explains why two European research teams have simulated the stomach in an artificial environment in order to observe what happens to food as it digests. One team headed by Professor Paul Singh at UC Davis, has a stomach on his computer screen he uses for what he calls “computational fluid dynamics”.

“With a two-year, $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture,”writes Brendan Borrell with Scientific American, “Singh and his postdoctoral student Fanbin Kong, have built a 3-D stomach on their computer. Their virtual stomach is split into a mesh of 281,602 squares; they use fluid dynamics to calculate how the rolling waves of contraction agitate the gastric acid inside it. The researchers can then place virtual particles of food inside”each with its own physical properties”and simulate how long it takes for molecule-size nutrients to seep out.

“Each food has its own microstructure,” Singh says, “Whether it is porous or compacted or its cells are held together through some binding agent. Nutrients are embedded in that matrix, and unless the matrix breaks down to the point where those nutrients get released, they are going to stay embedded.”

“Meanwhile,”writes Borrell, “researchers at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich, England, have built The Model Gut, a software-controlled in vitro system digestive system to study how carrots, meat, almonds and a host of other foods break down in the digestive system”

After reading Professor Singh’s simulated stomach work, about the only conclusion he draws in relation to cooked versus raw food is that it takes longer to digest a raw carrot than a cooked one. “Mom was right,”says Singh, “when she said you’ve got to chew your food well.” Not much help.

Because the question arises, why did we begin cooking our food with fire to begin with? Seems only humans cook their food while all other animals eat living foods. Most anthropologists agree the invention of cooking-fires began approximately 250,000 years ago with the discovery of hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flints across Europe and the middle East.

William J. Cromie thinks we kind of stumbled our way into cooked food: “Most anthropologists think bush fires, started by lightning, baked or singed exposed tubers and other roots. Human ancestors tried the fired food and the rest, as they say, is history”

Cromie adds, “Cooking played a major role in the development of smaller jaws and teeth, bigger brains, smaller guts, shorter arms, and longer legs, according to Richard Wrangham, professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University.

People like Ann Wigmore, pioneer of the raw foods movement and founder of the Hippocrates Health Institute, would be the first to point out that cooking destroys food (enzymes, minerals and vitamins) from the moment heat is applied.

“Researchers at the National Cancer Institute found that human subjects who ate beef rare or medium-rare had less than one third the risk of stomach cancer than those who ate beef medium-well or well-done. Cooking also creates toxins called Advanced glycation end products, otherwise known as AGEs. Acrylamide, a toxin found in roasted/baked/fried/grilled starchy foods, but not in boiled or raw foods, has been linked to endometrial, ovarian but not breast cancers. Ingested acrylamide is metabolised to a chemically reactive epoxide, glycidamide. The HEATOX (Heat Generated Food Toxins) project has published a report on acrylamide”

–Wikipedia

But “moderate cooking,”points out Borrell, “can also help release other nutrients”such as a tomato’s lycopene (an antioxidant with potential health benefits) or folic acid and beta-carotene from spinach”

Indeed, in a recent addition on FriendsEat, we reported that according to the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, cooked vegetables supply more antioxidants such as carotenoids and ferulic acid than when raw as long as they’re boiled or steamed. And in a separate study, the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found increased beta-carotene levels in cooked carrots as opposed to raw. https://friendseat.com/blog/cooked-or-raw-surprise-health-finding-in-veggie-report/

So the debate continues.

One aspect of eating raw foods comes to the foreground with me — raw food has the “life force”in its fibers — something science ignores. The “life force”is what makes the lettuce firm, the carrots stiff, and celery stalks stout — it’s important to eat foods when that “life force”radiates within fruits and vegetables. Meat, I believe, should be consumed in moderation.

  • Raw Food Diet and Recipes (losethattyre.co.uk)
  • Eating raw food is a lifestyle change, not a dietary change (paceandkyeli.com)
  • Book Review: The Live Food Factor by Susan Schenck (basilandspice.com)

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