Skip to main content

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
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WHY ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC OCEAN ARE NOT MIXED?

Nearly 72% of the earth is filled with water and it is present with different names- oceans, seas, rivers. Why are they named differently? There are five oceans namely Artic ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Indian ocean and Antarctic ocean . All the oceans are different in their physical and biological character called ocean clines. When we look at the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean junction, they do not mix. Is there any invisible Wall in between them? Many scientists have conducted research to solve this mystery. The Atlantic and Pacific Ocean have different chemical composition. The salinity of the water in the Atlantic Ocean is five times more than the Pacific Ocean. The density of water is also different, so even marine animals in Atlantic Ocean will not go to the Pacific Ocean. They cannot survive in other oceans. Atlantic and Pacific Ocean meet at Cape Horn. The narrow straight line formed by the water bodies is called Drake Strait. The Pacific Ocean is ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Chemical Lake

 Spotted Lake or Lake khiluk in Canada is richly concentrated with various minerals. It contains dense deposits of magnesium sulfate, calcium, and sodium sulfates. It also contains high concentrations of eight other minerals and lower amounts of silver and titanium. Most of the water in the lake evaporates over the summer, revealing colorful mineral deposits. Large ‘spots’ on the lake appear and are colored according to the mineral composition and seasonal amount of precipitation. Magnesium sulfate, which crystallizes in the summer, is a major contributor to spot color.  Originally known to the First Nations of the Okanagan Valley (Native American Tribe) as Khiluk, Spotted Lake was for centuries and remains revered as a sacred site thought to provide therapeutic waters. It is the most mineralized lake in the world. Each spot holds a different cure due to the unique chemical content found within each puddle. Lake Khiluk is considered a saline endorheic alkali lake. The Okanag...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why is the Pacific Ocean shrinking and the Atlantic Ocean is getting wider?

Twenty million years ago there was no Atlantic Ocean. But then, thanks to plate tectonics, the South American and North American continents were separated by a rift valley that eventually turned into the Atlantic Ocean. The complementary shapes of the South American and African continents have long been noticed, but it wasn't until the 1960s that the theory of plate tectonics became accepted as the explanation. These days, the Atlantic Ocean is growing at a rate of five centimetres per year, as new sea floor is created by volcanic activity along its mid-ocean ridge.        On the other hand, the much older Pacific Ocean is currently estimated to be shrinking by two to three centimetres each year. Again, this comes down to plate tectonics because the Pacific Ocean has subduction zones on three sides - where the Pacific plate submerges beneath other plates.  Since there are very few subduction zones in the Atlantic, Indian and Arctic oceans...
Post a Comment
Read more