Healing Wise
Optimum Nutrition: Cooked or Raw?
c. 2004 Susun S Weed
Which is better: cooked food or raw? Taking nothing
for granted or gospel, I set out to find out for myself
the answer to this important question.
First, I asked, what is meant by "raw food"
and what is meant by "cooked food?" One cannot
simply say that raw is uncooked, for there are raw food
"cookbooks." Nor is cooking simply the application
of heat through boiling, baking, or frying, as I soon
discovered. Ripening itself is one form of natural cooking;
others are described later.
Second, I wondered, what did my ancestors eat? And was
it raw or cooked?
Third, I questioned, how do enzymes in foods affect digestion
and health?
And fourth, I attempted to sum it up, is there an advantage
to cooking?
The answers weren't as simple as one might suspect, however.
The answers to these questions combine in interesting
ways, and open up other questions in their answering.
To begin with the second question: Our most primitive
ancestors, those who lived several million years ago,
most likely ate raw food. The majority of what they ate
was animal protein: muscle meats, organ meats, eggs, and
insects.
Present day examples of peoples who primarily eat raw
animal protein include the Inuit of the far North and
the Masai of Africa. Both groups are known for their health
and freedom from disease.
Research done by Dr. Pottenger in the mid-twentieth century
revealed that raw meat and milk contained enzymes necessary
for digestion. He showed that heat deactivated their enzymes
(www.westonaprice.org). His conclusion was that raw meat,
fish, milk and eggs provide more nutrients and are more
easily digested.
This is not true of plant foods, however. Vegetables
and fruits do contain enzymes -- if picked fully ripe
-- but their enzymes have no function in their own digestion,
although papaya, pineapple, and kiwi fruit contain enzymes
that digest meat (An interesting aside – these fruits
are tropical fruits that help digest and destroy, in the
digestive systems of people and animals, the parasites
that are found in those regions, and only incidentally
digest other kinds of meat). Many plant enzymes interfere
with digestion, so our bodies destroy them.
Cooked food was the preference of most of our ancestors.
Archaeologists have found evidence of fire in sites occupied
by hominids as far back as a million years ago, but cannot
say exactly when we began to use fire to cook food.
Certainly by about ten thousand years ago, when cultivation
of grains and beans -- hard foods which absolutely require
cooking -- became widespread, our ancestors were regularly
and routinely cooking their food.
Most current aboriginal people also cook their food;
in New Zealand, for instance, I found the Maori jealously
guarding natural hot pools used to cook their food.
Is there an advantage to cooking? It depends on how we
cook – or, more basically, how we define cooking
– and whether we are eating animals or plants. Animal
cells are surrounded by a membrane. This thin membrane
is easily dissolved by digestive juices, releasing the
nutrients stored in the cell. Fast, high-heat cooking
will toughen these membranes, thus slowing digestion and
impairing nutrient uptake.
For an illustration of this, think of how tough an overcooked
piece of meat can become; chewing, an important part of
digestion, is much more difficult. Slow, low-heat cooking
dissolves the membrane, making digestion and nutrient
uptake much easier. If the idea of raw meat turns your
stomach, eat soups and stews instead.
Plant cells are surrounded by a wall. This wall is designed
to resist breakage and to protect the stored nutrition
in plant cells. Digestive juices act on the cell walls
of plants little if at all; take a look in the toilet
the day after next time you eat corn on the cob to see
how true this is. Cooking, which can be expanded to include
her sisters freezing, drying, sprouting, fermenting, and
preserving in oil, breaks the cell wall and is necessary
to liberate nutrients from plant cells. Cooked vegetables
and fruits, grains, and beans provide more nutrients and
are more easily digested than raw ones.
A Haiku verse that could sum this up is:
Chewing what is raw,
how can one smile?
Muscles of the jaw too tense.
A macrobiotic diet, the only vegetarian diet shown to
put cancer in remission, consists of cooked food exclusively.
Around the world, well-cooked meat broths -- think chicken
soup -- are the food of choice for convalescents.
Cooked plants are far more nourishing than raw plants,
whether we look at vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, or
pulses (beans). Cooking not only breaks the cell wall,
liberating minerals to our bodies, it actually enhances
and activates many vitamins.
This is true especially of the carotenes, used to make
vitamin A, and other antioxidants in plants. Research
found that the longer the corn is cooked and the hotter
the temperature, the greater the amount of antioxidants
in the corn.
This also applies to vitamin C. A baked potato contains
far more vitamin C than a raw potato. And sauerkraut (cabbage
cooked by fermentation) contains up to ten times as much
vitamin C as raw cabbage.
Some vitamins do leach into cooking water. Cooking with
little or no water (for instance, steaming or braising)
reduces vitamin loss in vegetables such as broccoli from
97% to 11%.
Note, however, that the vitamins aren't lost or destroyed,
but merely transferred to the cooking water. Using that
water for soup stock, or drinking it, insures that you
ingest all the nutrients, and in a highly absorbable form.
Transferring nutrients into water, such as by making
nourishing herbal infusions and healing soups, and then
ingesting them is far more effective, in my experience,
than wheat grass juice, green drinks, or any kind of nutritional
supplement. It is, in fact, one of the best ways to optimally
nourish oneself that I have found in three decades of
paying attention to health.
Even if some vitamins are lost in cooking, people absorb
more of what is there from cooked foods. Several recent
studies measured vitamin levels in the blood after eating
raw and cooked vegetables. "Subjects who ate cooked
veggies absorbed four to five times more nutrients than
those who ate raw ones," reported researchers at
the Institute of Food Research in 2003.
There is no simple answer to the question "raw or
cooked?" But for simplicity’s sake, I say,
eat your food cooked. This is especially the case if you
choose to eat a diet high in whole grains, beans, nuts,
vegetables, and fruit. That's the way I eat, so I cook
most of my food. But I keep a herd of dairy goats so I
can have raw milk, raw milk cheese, and raw milk yogurt.
I do enjoy raw meat and raw fish on occasion, but more
often slow cook my goat into barbeque, a special kind
of healing "soup" I learned to make in Texas.
The cook dances with the element fire. The cook stirs
the cauldron. The cook transforms the parts and turns
them into our whole. Blessings on the cook. Praise to
the cook. May your food be well cooked.
For permission to reprint this article, write to:
Susun Weed PO Box 64 Woodstock, NY 12498
Send email: susunweed@herbshealing.com Website: www.susunweed.com