What does cooking do to amino acids?

[GGreen]

Once I learn sprouting, I won't be cooking no more but for now I do cook quinoa, and beans.

 

I know, it does reduce their mineral and vitamin supply and kills thier enzymes. Cooking also reduces these food from complex carbs to simple ones but it depends on how long you cook them, and the cooking temperature.

 

Now, what happens to amino acids during cooking?

[lmmy]

I have to step in here -- enzymes are not important. At all. Even if you don't destroy them with cooking, your stomach acid destroys them before they can do much of anything to the food you've eaten.

 

And, as far as I know, minerals cannot be destroyed by cooking -- or there would be no minerals in the Earth, as it spent ~one billion years as molten rock.

 

The only vitamin I have heard that is destroyed by cooking is vitamin C.

 

I don't mean to insult anyone on this forum, but a lot of raw foodists are going on, if not outright bad, then remarkably exaggerated information. That said, I have nothing against raw foodism, just bad information, and I wish you the best in your endeavors.

[GGreen]

You are misinformed but each to their own..

[Bigbwii]

I've heard all that before....

 

Here's my take on it......

 

Regardless of what any of us thinks we know.....the effects of cooked food on our bodies is plain to see!

 

[offense74]

The proteins can change when you cook (or otherwise alter) them. This meens that the aminos will form new proteins and thus some of the old ones gets destroyed. I don't think the aminos themselves gets destroyed.

 

There are probably alot of substances that gets destroyed in the cooking process and others get more available. Some of these substances are beneficial and others are not. Lycopene and lutein for example get more available when you cook their "hosts".

Enzymes are chains of aminoacids (i.e. proteins) and science (as in peer reviewed, published studies) have yet to find why these protein are treated in other ways than other proteins. The body needs aminoacids to be able to build proteins in the different cells of the body. If whole chains of aminos (even enzymes) gets into the bloodstream the immune system will see them as enemies and destroy them.

 

I believe raw food is good for the body. It might even be the optimum diet but maybe not for the reasons alot of raw fooders think.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[Guest]

if our own bodies didn't have enzymes...since they are useless...we'd crap out food the same way we ate it. Not that all enzymes are purely for digestion but they are very important. Of course our stomachs kill the enzymes but they are also digesting them immediately after they are consumed...we gain from it...unlike the case if those enzymes were carbonized from being cooked away. If this wasn't the case we could be just as healthy eating freeze dried foods all the time

[lmmy]

???

 

How can they benefit from something that isn't active?

 

GGreen: yeah, I know, I guess raw foodists will listen to any "raw food guru", even if they don't actually back up their information with anything that's scientifically proven. Like I read an article by a raw food guru saying that "proton-rich fruits will rob your body of needed electrons". I'm convinced now that most raw foodists have never seen the inside of a Chemistry textbook, or listen to anyone who doesn't say something logically impossible like "we biologically benefit from things that aren't active in our bodies."

 

I was nasty because you just said "you're wrong" and didn't bother to argue. I think it shows a lot about your lifestyle if you won't even debate it with scientifically-proven -- not anecdotal -- facts.

[Bigbwii]

???

 

 

 

I was nasty because you just said "you're wrong" and didn't bother to argue. I think it shows a lot about your lifestyle if you won't even debate it with scientifically-proven -- not anecdotal -- facts.

 

No...because your pretty damn rude with your description of raw foodists!

 

But hey...do your thang!

[GGreen]

Immy,

 

Is cooking harmless to you? If so backed it up.

 

I know since I went raw vegan wholefood, I am full of energy, I feel better, I think better, and look better. That is all the prove I need to know, what I am doing is working for me. I experiment on myself by switching between raw and cooked every now and then and I can see the differences.

 

Plus, cooked food tastes like dirt and makes you feel like dirt.

[princessbee]

Hey lmmy... you gotta cut this out... attacking people on the forum... you have your opinions and that's cool but I really think you need to reassess the way you present them to people because it's unnecessarily aggressive and creates dissent on the forum.

 

you can argue your belief and your point (that many raw food beliefs are not based on scientific evidence) without being rude or abrasive. it's really alienating and is not likely to bring people around to your point of view.

[flanders77]

Since we do not have admins here I support princessbees statement.

Immy: Please write everything you want and try to give some facts to support your statements. Please try to not be offensive. This forum is such a lovely place because respect is not only a word here, but most members really respect eachother even when they have opposing attitudes.

[Guest]

Immy...the raw food movement is too new for there to be alot of scientific evidence supporting it and there won't be any until there are a couple hundred thousand raw foodists...anyway there are simply too many healthy raw foodists to deny the benefits of the diet. Personally I've tried every diet you could imagine and I'm mostly raw now because it feels great and I'm performing much better and I'm eating far less protein than I used to eat. I'm also not losing any muscle which at the moment is something that I wanna do. If eating raw food while riding my bike 350-500 miles a week isn't gonna make me lose muscle than its pretty easy to imagine that the diet is good for building muscle with different training. I also recover much more easily than I used to. Sometimes you've just gotta look at the people following the diet and not a lack of studies...if you just looked at stupid studies you'd probably be weary about being vegan since most studies on vegan diets are BS...also I was a biology major with a strong background in chemistry and I understand how the diet works. Surely all the food you eat dies but certain living things that your body kills aids in the digestion of other foods and makes the body perform more optimally. Before I tried the raw diet I was a bit iffy on the idea of enzymatically alive foods, but I knew the foods were more nutrient dense than cooked foods...anyway I gave it a try and benefited greatly...thats science enough. If people don't test it on themselves nobody is ever gonna waste they're time and money studying a diet with no people interested in following it.

[GGreen]

Raw food is where veganism was at it is infancy. People where

like how can you be vegan, how can you live on that, you must be dumb, blah blah

 

Well, today veganism is accepted as fact by most aware people as being healthier than the SAD. Science is to slow. The hippies were right after all about veganism.

[Kathryn]

Immy, I agree that often raw food experts seem to work more from wishful thinking than science (like some saying that nori and dulse are good sources of B12, when studies have shown that they actually contain B12 analogs), but I also agree your tone is too harsh.

 

For some scientific backing of the benefits of raw over cooked, look into "Pottinger's cats." A scientist names Pottinger fed cats (sorry to make reference to an animal study...I don't know if there are any non-animal studies available) either a raw-food diet (in their case, meat and milk) or a cooked version of the same diet. Subsequent generations of cats fed the cooked food diet became ill and were unable to reproduce...at which time he stopped the experiment).

[_raVen_]

Once I learn sprouting, I won't be cooking no more but for now I do cook quinoa, and beans.

 

I know, it does reduce their mineral and vitamin supply and kills thier enzymes. Cooking also reduces these food from complex carbs to simple ones but it depends on how long you cook them, and the cooking temperature.

 

Now, what happens to amino acids during cooking?

 

If I get a better answer on specifically aminos, I'll post it:

 

Excerption from Eat To Live:

 

"Additionally, raw foods contain enzymes, some of which can survive the digestive process in the stomach and pass into the small intestines. These heat-sensitive elements may add significant nutritional advantages to protect against disease, according to investigators from the Department of Biochemistry at Wright State University School of Medicine. These researchers concluded that "most foods undergo a decrease in nutritive value in addition to the well-known loss of vitamins when cooked and /or processed."

 

Most vitamins are heat sensitive, for example 20 to 60 percent of Vitamin C is lost when food is cooked, depending on the cooking method. Thirty to forty percent of minerals are lost in cooking vegetables as well. Consuming a significant quantity of raw foods is essential for superior health.

 

For the best results, your diet should contain a huge amount of raw foods, a large amount of the lower caloric density cooked vegetation and a lesser amount of the more caloric rich cooked starchy vegetables and grains."

 

Q&A,Interview:

 

Fuhrman on a high-raw diet

[Barb]

Good info Raven and kat. Thanks