RE: Cooking and nutrients

[Guest guest]

Hi All, Thanks Tim. The site I liked though is: What kind of combined

raw/cooked diet? Making intelligent choices. This is the title of

http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-3b.shtml from a Beyond

Vegetarianism site. It is I think a very interesting break-down of different

diets and describes different aspects of diet, especially nutrients and

their uptake, but also things like paleo diets,

Some titles of paragraphs/short sections are:

Trade-off #1: Should we cook to neutralize toxins/improve digestibility of

potentially valuable foods?

" Optimal foraging " in the modern supermarket?

No " perfect " food or set of foods enabling avoidance of all toxins.

Trade-off #2: Will an all-raw diet require excessive bulk to obtain

sufficient nutrition?

Idealism vs. real-world practicalities. Some of the reasons why all-raw

diets can be impractical to implement include:

The calorie problem in strict raw vegan diets.

Bioavailability concerns can necessitate higher, unsustainable levels

of intake. ...The Calorie Paradox [

http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/cal-par/calorie-paradox1a.shtml :

Compelling insights into raw diets to be gleaned from analyzing the " calorie

paradox. " After first laying to rest an outdated but still-popular rationale

for why some people believe that calories don't matter and are irrelevant,

we'll then take a look at the caloric values for each of the classes of food

types permissible in a raw vegan diet, and the amounts of each type of food

necessary to meet daily caloric requirements. The resulting figures provide

compelling insights into the various types of eating patterns seen among raw

vegans and demonstrate why these commonly seen patterns inevitably exist.

Finally, these same insights and figures also provide hard criteria by which

to assess the credibility and truthfulness of individuals claiming to have

bypassed the raw vegan calorie paradox.of Raw Veganism for the practical

problems imposed by the volume of food that can be required.)]

Raw diets often lack nutritional variety under modern conditions

because of the relatively narrow range of palatable (raw) foods available in

today's supermarkets, which can lead to boredom and/or deficiencies.

Binge-eating due to unmet needs or caged desires.

Sacrifices in other important areas of one's life.

Social isolation ...

Excessive mental preoccupation.

Important distinction to be made between less-than-100%-raw diets vs.

SAD/ " standard Western diet " (SWD).

Misrepresentations by extremists.

How is the balance of nutrients one obtains affected by eating partially

cooked?

Let's compare a few foods. We give the mineral composition for standard

100-gram portions. (Notes: dates are dried, with

22.5% moisture; broccoli is boiled, without salt, drained; potatoes are

boiled, without skin.) (nutrient values in mg per 100g portion)

Now, let's examine the composition for 100-calorie portions rather than

weight. (Analysis by energy--calories--makes more

sense when comparing foods eaten largely for their energy content, like

avocados or potatoes.) IN A MOSTLY-RAW VEGAN DIET (nutrient values in mg per

100 calories)

Including some cooked food may diversify the diet and reduce narrow

dependencies.

Utilizing some cooked food to supply dense calories can help resolve the

high-volume intake problem.

Is " what's possible " necessarily optimal or most practical?

GO TO NEXT PART OF ARTICLE

(How Diversifying the Diet with Animal Foods Affects Nutrient Levels)

Return to beginning of article

SEE REFERENCE LIST

SEE TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: PART 1 PART 2 PART 3

GO TO PART 1 - Is Cooked Food " Toxic " ?

GO TO PART 2 - Does Cooked Food Contain Less Nutrition?

GO TO PART 3 - Discussion: 100% Raw vs. Predominantly Raw

Back to Research-Based Appraisals of Alternative Diet Lore

Cheers, Al.

rom: " Tim Tyler <tt2333@y...> " <tt2333@y...>

Date: Sun Mar 2, 2003 10:57 pm

Subject: Cooking and nutrients

" Geoffrey <geoffw35@h...> "

<geoffw35@h...> wrote:

> Thanks, Tim. I had to smile a bit

reading this because I get this

> image of no longer chewing, but

drinking my meals instead--

> salad mush rather than salad. I

suppose chewing one's food

> very thoroughly could bring you to

the same place. I don't

> doubt you are correct about this

increasing the absorption,

> but does this bring it up to the

level of cooked vegetables?

It's a bit different - and probably

not directly comparable.

> I had read about the reduction in vitamin C before, but not

> about the destruction of fiber. So thanks for that. Do you have

> a reference you can cite where this is described in detail?

No. Here's where it's described in very little detail:

``Cooking breaks down fiber so that the various enzymes can

enter the cell. Vitamin A is 30 times more available in

cooked carrots than raw. However, there are other nutrients

which can be destroyed by enzymatic action which is

encouraged by warmth.''

- http://ccd.rightchoice.org/nut100/carbohyd.htm

Some more general references relating to the effect of cooking on

nutrient levels:

http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-2a.shtml

http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-2f.shtml

http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-2g.shtml

Alan Pater, Ph.D.; Faculty of Medicine; Memorial University; St. 's, NL

A1B 3V6 Canada; Tel. No.: (709) 777-6488; Fax No.: (709) 777-7010; email:

apater@...