Hello, I jumped into raw food without doing much research because I just love the idea. Now I am curious to find out what is the bad things about cookded food. I know there is no nutrintion left because the heating process. Any other factors I should be aware of?

cooking some things causes carcinogens to form .. such as fats and oils .. carcinogens are known to cause diseases and their toxic

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Since my experience is that cooking does nothing to increase the quality/quantity of the nutrient/protein profile......then eating food in its unprocessed state lends itself to greater health. Knowing NOW the exact damage that cooked foods must surely do the long/short term viability of the organism....is not something I WANT to know! Ha! ha! Just my opinion / observation.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

protein, lipid, and carbohydrate oxidation
formation of advanced glycation end products and advanced lipooxidation products
damaged secondary plant metabolites (alkaloids, terpenoids, phenolics, etc.)

The Sept 2007 issue of Mol Nutr Food Res is devoted to glycation damage. The experts are debating whether or not normal dietary amounts are really damaging to healthy people. There is no question that they are harmful to diabetics and people with renal failure.

Here is a link, only the abstracts are free:
[www3.interscience.wiley.com]

[www.rawfoodlife.com]

[www.jotform.us]

Our bodies are not "designed" to digest cooked/processed food but raw plant matter instead.

one thing that never really enters into the discussion, which I think is important,

is that most cooked foods are the WORST combinations of foods...nevermind all the altering..denaturing, creation of carcinogens etc...its all "cows with pasta with melted tomatoes and rasbery tart and pepcid AC for desert! please!"

traditionally (not going ALL the way back to 'nature' etc...) people ate very simple cooked fare: (tubers, some grains, of course meats..but usually in very small quantities and on rare occasions) and thus avoided 'modern' disease..(although they were not free of disease as we raw folks know)

food combining (or lack there of - mono eating...etc) is really the big key to increasing health, as digestive rest, lack of fermentation, cutting off the supply to any nasty critters etc...are one of the main reasons eating 'raw' foods allow for increasing health.

* Water is another big one that is ignored. any application of heat (even dehydrators) will...uh...dehydrate the system.

its really easy to neglect these and support the 'living enzymes' theory and just go about mimicing cooked foods with raw counterparts...but really this only has strength if one is systematically removing all the major contributors of disease (processed starches and sugar, dairy, meat etc...) COMPLETELY without cheating or backtracking.

when i lived in nepal for a year i pretty much ate the same thing everyday .. it was vegetarian

boiled rice, curried vegetables and lentil stewy mix poured over the rice dhal Bhat it was called

it was amazing to mono eat these things twice a day like the locals (i stayed in villages doing relief and volunteer work)

these people eat like this pretty much most days of their life hehe .. i would call this *simple* cooked fare (like anaken points out) .. i never experienced the heartburn and digestive issues that plagued me back at home in fact after a year when i came home i felt better then i ever have in my life lol..i dont think it was so much the food but more that my system didnt have to work so hard to process what i was putting into it

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2007 02:09AM by Jgunn.

I think the important thing is what you are eating cooked. There is a huge difference between eating some steamed veggies and a cheese covered pizza. I am not 100% raw. I don't find that 100% raw is the be all and end all for me (and for a lot of people). A few times per week I will have a baked potato or sweet potato for dinner.... I love to have air popped popcorn once a week too. Still, about 5 days per week I am 100% raw. I find no difference in the way I feel if I am 100% raw or 80% raw--I still feel great, even better after having a baked potato. I just try to keep it healthy and simple.

Good question, ferdiewen. Here is one answer:

What Happens to Food When It Is Cooked

by Frederick Mann

(a) Some of the nutrients are destroyed (vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc.). Most conventional nutritionists agree.

(b) All the enzymes are destroyed. Enzymes are essential for proper digestion. Some enzymes speed up certain digestive processes a millionfold.

(c) The ratios of nutrients are changed. In the case of meat, relatively more vitamin B6 than methionine is destroyed, leading to atherogenic free-radical-initiating homocysteine accumulation. In other words, cooked meat causes heart problems. Cooked meat is also a carcinogen.

(d) Toxic substances are formed. More than 90 toxic substances have been identified that are formed when a potato is cooked. Some of these toxins are mutagenic and/or carcinogenic.

(e) Waste material is created.

(f) Cooking food has similar effects to the aging processes in the body. Cooking ages food very rapidly and very extensively.

(g) The water content of the food changes.

(h) The food's life-energy and life-information are destroyed.

What Happens to a Human Body That Eats Cooked Food

(a) There is a rush of white blood cells towards the digestive tract, leaving the rest of the body less protected by the immune system. From the point of view of the immune system the body is being invaded by toxins when cooked food is eaten.

(b) A general augmentation of white corpuscles in the blood and a change in the relative proportions of different blood cells. This phenomenon is called digestive leukocytosis.

(c) Because all the enzymes are destroyed by cooking, the food cannot be properly digested. In attempting to manufacture the requisite enzymes, an unnecessary burden is placed on the body. It cannot manufacture all the necessary enzymes. The result is indigestion and sometimes ulcers. In general, raw food is so much more easily digested that it passes through the system in a half to a third of the time it takes for cooked food.

(d) The intestinal flora becomes putrefied (particularly from cooked meat), resulting in colonic dysfunction, allowing the absorption of toxins from the bowel. This phenomenon is variously called dysbacteria, dysbiosis, or intestinal toxemia (toxicosis).

(e) A build-up of toxins and waste material in many parts of the body, including within individual cells. Some of these toxins and wastes are called lipofuscin, which accumulates in the skin and nervous system, including the brain. It can be observed as "liver spots" or "age spots." It is an important aging process: general toxemia (toxicosis).

(f) Malnutrition at a cellular level. Because such a high proportion of cooked food consists of wastes and toxins, individual cells don't receive enough of the nutrients they need.

(g) Tendency towards obesity through overeating. Because the cells don't get enough nutrients they are so to speak "always hungry" and hence "demand" more food.

(h) From time to time the body experiences detoxification crises (also called purification or healing crises). This happens when toxins are released through the skin or dumped in the bloodstream for elimination by the liver, kidneys, and other organs. The symptoms may include headaches, fever, nausea, vomiting, colds, bronchitis, sinusitis, pneumonia, diarrhea, etc.

(i) The body can become so toxic that all kinds of particles, such as pollen, can cause detoxification crises, called "allergies." About 80 million Americans suffer from such "allergies."

(j) The immune system, having to deal with the massive daily invasions of toxins, mutagens, and carcinogens eventually becomes overwhelmed and weakened. Another important aging process.

(k) Auto-immune diseases (arthritis, rheumatism, bursitis, gout, multiple sclerosis, etc.). Parts of the body become so clogged with toxins and wastes that the immune system starts regarding them as foreign invaders that must be destroyed - the body starts destroying itself. Another important aging process.

(l) Some of the waste material builds up in the arteries and clogs them leading to high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, arteriosclerosis, strokes, etc. - killing nearly half of Americans.

(m) The toxins, mutagens, and carcinogens that build up within cells, eventually cause some cells to become cancerous - killing nearly a third of Americans.

(n) In general, many of the aging processes are accelerated by cooked food. (People who switch to raw food often become visibly and physiologically younger.

I was reading this from Fruitarian's blog today, I thought it was right on and if you're wondering why you shouldn't eat cooked food or you need a little push, you should give it a read!

[blog.myspace.com]

Hope this helps.