Does cooking vegetables destroy the benefits of enzymes and nutrients , isn't raw better?

Similar questions: cooking vegetables destroy benefits enzymes nutrients raw.

For some things, yes. But not for everything. Some nutrients are destroyed by cooking, most noticeably Vitamin C.

But not everything we eat is cooked, and it's not difficult to get plenty of these nutrients with the amount of raw food we do it. The problem with the "raw food" concept is thinking that if some is good, then more must be better. As long as you're getting enough vitamin C in your diet, it doesn't really matter if you get more of it.

You can eat all the cooked food you want and it doesn't destroy the vitamin C you get from other sources. The "enzymes" in raw food are dramatically overstated. Our body produces its own enzymes, and doesn't need it from external sources.

Most enzymes that we do eat are digested as proteins rather than put to work biochemically. There is still plenty of nutrition in cooked food, and in some ways it's better nutrition. Cooking kills the bacteria and other parasites living in meat and on the surfaces of some vegetables.

Many foods can't be eaten at all in their raw state: beans, potatoes, wheat. You can sprout the wheat, but in doing so you're changing proteins and destroying enzymes, which cooking also does. Raw food diets always involve considerable processing: chopping, grinding, URL1 make it possible to eat them.

One argument for raw food is that it's supposed to be the way our evolutionary ancestors ate, but our ancestors didn't process their food, either. And they also died by age 40, so they didn't have to deal with the way raw food slowly wears away teeth. We do require some raw foods in our diet, and nutritional supplements to compensate aren't really as good.

But claiming that we should eat ONLY raw food strains belief.

The right amount of cooking can increase nutrient availability The way you prepare and cook your vegetables will determine how much nutrient loss there is. Chopping, or slicing (breaks down the cell walls), and allowing your vegetables to sit for 5-10 minutes maximizes their valuable phytonutrients. Steaming foods for the right amount of time results in negligible nutrient loss.

How well you chew your food plays a roll in nutrient absorption also. Most people do not chew their food adequately, and because digestion begins in your mouth you will not absorb as much. Cooking vegetables helps aid digestion, making what you eat more easily absorbed.

However, excessive cooking will lead to a loss of nutrients. The website below is filled with valuable information, recipes, tips on vegetable preparation, nutrient density of fruits, vegetables, proteins and other things you might find useful. I found it so useful I purchased the book mentioned (The Worlds Healthiest Foods) and use it faithfully.

Last but not least I find the Oster Steamer to be indispensible in my kitchen! Sources: whfoods.com Aubbie's Recommendations Oster 5712 Electronic 2-Tier 6.1-Quart Food Steamer Amazon List Price: $39.99 I use this practically every day - it was 29.99 when I purchased it however.

Not necessarily, in some cases cooked is better! First of all, let me dispel the myth that enzymes have magical properties of some sort, and that they can only be found in raw foods. Enzymes are simply chemical catalysts, each one helping a specific chemical reaction to occur.

If you eat an enzyme that a plant uses to break down soil, it isn't going to do anything beneficial for you. Some enzymes in plants might be helpful, but there isn't anything magical about an enzyme in general that makes them all beneficial. It's true that head does break down enzymes and proteins.

Overcooking food does take away some of the beneficial chemicals you might otherwise get. That isn't the whole story though. Plants have cell walls around each cell, and cell walls are made of cellulose, which the human digestive tract can't digest.

Heating breaks down cellulose, and allows your body to get access to all the beneficial chemicals within the plant cells, so cooking can actually help you access some of the healthy properties of plants. There's certainly nothing wrong with eating raw plants (assuming they aren't poisonous raw and that they're cleaned carefully), but there is nothing wrong with eating properly cooked vegetables either. You can have a very healthy diet eating lightly cooked and steamed vegetables, and even well cooked, roasted, boiled, or fried vegetables!

Consider this as well - if you eat more veggies because they're cooked into delicious dishes, you're better off than if you only eat very few because you don't like them as well raw.

Generally yes; however, cooking can also make them more available to us hoomans... Cooking will reduce or destroy a lot of nutrients, a lot (I understand) because they are leached out into the boiling water. But heat will degrade them. Thus microwaving or steaming are much better if you are cooking foods; Obviously, grilling is better than frying for things like tomatoes.

But remember that there are some vegetables that are virtually inedible unless cooked - potatoes, and others, like carrots, where their nutrient is made much more available by cooking and weakening their cell walls. So you cook with a minimal touch, learning to enjoy your vegetables being a bit more crisp, or raw. Sources: general knowledge salamanda's Recommendations Norpro Stainless-Steel Expandable Vegetable Steamer Amazon List Price: $8.99 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 19 reviews) Joyce Chen J26-0016 6-Inch 3-Piece Bamboo Steamer Amazon List Price: $10.95 Average Customer Rating: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 6 reviews) .

In most cases Raw vegetables are definitely better for you. Cooking vegetables has a destructive effect on many of the antioxidants and essential fatty acids, though cooked carrots actually have more antioxidant activity than raw carrots. It’s a long known fact that EFAs are destroyed or turned rancid by heat.

The enzymes in food that are destroyed by heat are of no use to you anyway; you make your own enzymes for digestion of your food. In your stomach and intestines, food is separated into carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Then enzymes made by your body break the carbohydrates, fats and proteins into their building blocks, and only these building blocks can be absorbed into your bloodstream.

Enzymes in foods have no function in your body because they are treated like any other protein that you eat. Enzymes in foods are broken down into the building blocks of protein called amino acids in your intestines, so it makes no difference whether or not they are broken down by cooking. And only because I've seen so much nonsense posted about the sharp difference in glycemic scores between cooked and raw carrots, I've included that section of the glycemic index to refute that particular claim, in the off chance that it's going to come up.

southbeach-diet-plan.com/glycemicfoodcha... .

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