is this true about cooked food?

[britaniefaith]

I keep getting comments from different people when I tell them that I am Raw. The same thing is always that "most of the vitamins from veggies are absorbed better when they are cooked" in other words, if you eat all of your veggies raw, you will be missing out on alot of vitamins and minerals that you'd normally get if you cooked them.

Is there any truth to this? I find it hard to be true but I never know what to say when I get these comments, because I know that by cooking you food, you get rid of the enzymes but then how is it possible you'd be getting vitamins by cooking them?

[Veganforlife]

No, absolutely NOT true. Cooked foods are dead foods. They have all their goodness cooked out of them.

[mangotango]

There have been some studies that show that certain individual nutrients (lypocene from tomatoes, for example) absorb better when cooked. But: what is the wisdom in looking only at isolated nutrients? Nature doesn't create isolated nutrients; it creates whole foods that are complete nutritional "packages" - with water, vitamins, minerals, carbs, fats, protein. Whole foods will always deliver more than the sum of their isolated parts.

[rawsurfer]

plus there is more lycopene in watermelon i believe. but yeah, what he said

[tanawana]

Most of the vitamins and minerals are actually lessened through the different ways or degrees of cooking. This is why steaming is usually less harmful than using a stove for example. Some foods when cooked do bring about certain advantages when cooked, but the advantage is usually outweighed but what is loss.

I would ask those people for more detail and see what they come up with?? Chances are they are just taking second hand information and restating it incorrectly :)

[JennaBoBenna]

The only thing I've heard that with is greens. That cooking breaks down the cellular walls of greens so the nutrients etc. are easier to get to, but since most raw foodies drink their greens, it isn't a problem :D
Or just remember to really chew your greens, and you're fine.

[Stina]

The bottom line is my own experience. I'm highly energized off of eating raw, not so with cooked veges.

[Judy]

Depending on how vegetables and fruit are treated (e.g. steamed, baked, cooked, fried, reheated, refined, canned, sugared etc etc etc and depending on the time etc etc etc), it can loose up to 90 % of it's nutritional value. I don't remember the exáct numbers, and I don't care, I have seen them though, and if you'd like to have 'facts', you can always google it up. Anyway, I read steaming will cause the least loss of vitamins etc, like 10 to 30 % or so, but otherwise, cooked veg and fruit certainly won't give the amount of nutrients raw produce does, because after cooking there just aren't that many nutrients left to absorb.

Some food isn't good to eat raw, like potatoes, legumes (beans etc), grains, because it's hard or nearly impossible for the body to digest and some food can even be toxic when eaten raw. But well, my idea of that is: if it's difficult or dangerous to eat raw, why would it be so great to eat cooked?
Some plants, from the night shade family for example (like potatoes, egg plant and tomatoes) actually do contain nicotine, and by cooking them, you lessen the amount of that (a Dutch cook who went high raw said: 'Most people don't know that eggplant contains 17x as much nicotine raw than cooked'). I don't know how strong the amount of nicotine in those plants is btw (it's certainly nót as high as in tobacco), or if we should worry about it, but I do know that raw egg plant and potato don't appeal to me at all.

Yeah, and I've heard that about raw greens not being absorbed by the body (you need to cook them or add some oil to make them better absorbable) etc a couple of times, and there may be some truth to it, however if that really was the case, most raw foodists and certainly most animals would die as we speak because of malnutrition, and that's just not the case. I do know that some animals have developed certain stomachs to absorb certain nutrients better, or that they have to eat like a million kilos of something to get a little bit of energy and nutricious value from their food, so... There are more sides than one to this story.

People can say what they want and have all kinds of theories, but as long as they haven't tried it for themselves, embodied it and see what it does, well, then it's just another very intelligent theory and nothing more. If it dóes wonders for you, then that's all the prove you need and then you'll be a walking and living proof that you cán get all the nutrients your body needs (and more) out of this way of eating. I'm a very practical girl and I have to try things for myself to see if and how they work. And by the way, it's my experience that most people who say these kind of things, really aren't that health conscious or paying that much attention to the food they put in their bodies and really don't know what they are talking about. When they say: 'But you never get enough protein', for example, they just say it, because they heard these things in the main media (and what does the main media know). If the main media says: you need to eat 10 kilos of meat to get enough protein, it's healthy, then that's what they'll believe, without thinking twice about it. Actually, why is it that we have to defend ourselves or explain ourselves about the way we eat? Other people don't have to explain why they eat like they do? Next time I'll just say: 'No comment'... :D
I guess, as soon as people see you eat healthily, they just feel like their own choices are questionned, and may feel on an uncoscious level that they can do so much better themselves... And they don't want to change, so they start asking all these intelligent questions to quieten their doubts...

Hey, but that's stuff for a whole other thread...
And this post is getting waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to long.
I'll just stop now.

[Priscilagj@mac.com]

that's so not true. even my parents, DOCTORS, say that when veggies are cooked you drain all the minerals and vitamins out. =]

[aililiu]

i think its exactly what jennabobenna said... by steaming, some of the nutrients become less inhibited... but by chewing really well or blending you solve this problem. most people do neither.