Raw or cooked food, which is healthier?

There are many schools of thought regarding raw versus cooked food. Some believe cooking food can improve its taste, but loses or changes its nutritional content, versus some vitamins become more available for your body to use when it’s cooked. There are benefits of both raw and cooked foods. Boiling foods results in the greatest loss of nutrients while other cooking methods more effectively preserve the nutrient content of food. Steaming, roasting and stir-frying are some of the best methods of cooking vegetables when it comes to retaining nutrients.

Foods that are healthier RAW:

  • Broccoli – Raw contains 3x the amount of sulforaphane, a cancer-fighting plant compound, than cooked broccoli.
  • Cabbage – Cooking cabbage destroys the enzyme myrosinase, which plays a role in cancer prevention. If you choose to cook cabbage, do so for short periods.
  • Onions – Raw onion is an anti-platelet agent, which contributes to heart disease prevention. Cooking onions reduces this beneficial effect.
  • Garlic – Sulfur compounds found in raw garlic have anti-cancer properties. Cooking garlic destroys these sulfur compounds.

Foods that are healthier COOKED:

  • Asparagus – Cooking asparagus breaks down its fibrous cell walls, making folate, vitamins A, C, E more available.
  • Mushrooms – Cooking mushrooms helps degrade agaritine, a potential carcinogen.  Cooking also helps release ergothioneine, a powerful antioxidant.
  • Spinach –Cooking spinach makes nutrients like iron, magnesium, calcium, and zinc more available.
  • Tomatoes –Cooking tomatoes greatly increases the antioxidant lycopene.
  • Potatoes – the starch in potatoes is nearly indigestible until a potato is cooked.
  • Legumes – Raw or undercooked legumes contains dangerous toxins called lectins.  Lectins are eliminated with proper soaking and cooking.

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722699/

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/raw-food-vs-cooked-food#TOC_TITLE_HDR_4

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