Is Raw Food Healthier Than Cooked Food?

Cooking food can improve its taste, but it also changes the nutritional content.

Interestingly, some vitamins are lost when food is cooked, while others become more available for your body to use.

Some claim that eating primarily raw foods is the path to better health. However, certain cooked foods have clear nutritional benefits.

What Is a Raw-Food Diet?

Raw foods are foods that have not been cooked or processed.

While there are varying levels of raw-food diets, all of them involve eating mostly unheated, uncooked and unprocessed foods. In general, a raw-food diet is made up of at least 70% raw foods.

The diet often includes fermented foods, sprouted grains, nuts and seeds, in addition to raw fruits and vegetables.

Many raw foodists consume a vegetarian or vegan diet, eliminating animal products and eating mostly raw plant foods. However, a small number also consume raw dairy products, fish and even raw meat.

Advocates claim that raw foods are more nutritious than cooked foods because enzymes, along with some nutrients, are destroyed in the cooking process. Some believe that cooked food is actually toxic.

While there are some clear benefits to eating raw fruits and vegetables, there are also some potential problems with a raw-food diet.

A strict raw-food diet is very difficult to follow, and the number of people that stick to a completely raw diet in the long term is very small.

Furthermore, some foods contain dangerous bacteria and microorganisms that are only eliminated by cooking. Eating a completely raw diet that includes fish and meat comes with a risk of developing a food-borne illness.

Cooking May Destroy Enzymes in Food

When you consume a food, digestive enzymes in your body help break it down into molecules that can be absorbed.

The food you eat also contains enzymes that aid digestion.

Enzymes are heat sensitive and deactivate easily when exposed to high temperatures. Nearly all enzymes are deactivated at temperatures over 117°F.

This is one of the primary arguments in favour of raw-food diets. When a food’s enzymes are altered during the cooking process, more enzymes are required from your body to digest it.

Proponents of raw-food diets claim that this puts stress on your body and can lead to enzyme deficiency. However, there are no scientific studies to support this claim.

Some scientists argue that the main purpose of food enzymes is to nourish the growth of the plant — not to help humans digest them.

Furthermore, the human body produces the enzymes necessary to digest food. And the body absorbs and re-secretes some enzymes, making it unlikely that digesting food will lead to an enzyme deficiency. 

Moreover, science has not yet demonstrated any adverse health effects of eating cooked foods with denatured enzymes.

Credits: Nivethitha