By Ariel Kim '20
An ongoing debate has recently gained momentum from the current craze for healthy living: which is better — raw food or cooked food? Proponents of raw food argue that eating raw means getting more nutrients: their primary argument is that cooking kills natural enzymes, minerals, and vitamins in raw ingredients. Proponents of cooked food, on the other hand, believe that cooking can facilitate digestion and enhance flavor. Which diet is actually — scientifically — better?
One key criteria for determining the “healthiness” of a diet is absorption of nutrients. Eating healthy really isn’t about how many nutrients the food actually contains — what matters is the amount of nutrients that our bodies absorb. For instance, participants in a 2010 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition followed one of three diets: a raw food diet, a wholesome nutrition diet (healthy cooked food diet), or an average Western diet. Participants following the raw food diet consumed more beta-carotene (a precursor to vitamin A, which is essential for healthy skin, immune system, and vision) than those following any other diet; however, those following the whole nutrition diet absorbed most of this antioxidant.
In addition to the increased absorption of nutrients, cooking can increase the amount of certain essential antioxidants or minerals such as calcium (important for bone health), lycopene (linked to lower risk of cancer and heart attacks), lutein (linked to good eye health), and ferulic acid (linked to better heart health).
Before unanimously agreeing that cooked veggies are “healthier” than raw veggies, we need to clarify what we mean by “cooking.” Cooking doesn’t mean deep frying — in fact, deep fried foods are sources of free radicals, which are created by the continuous oxidation of oil when heated at high temperatures. Free radicals are harmful because they can injure cells in the body. Moreover, critical antioxidants in the veggies and oil mentioned above are depleted during frying to stabilize the oxidation cycles.
So what do we mean by “cooking”? Cooking means boiling or steaming. According to a study in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, boiling or steaming (particularly boiling) helps preserve nutrients like carotenoids, ascorbic acid, and polyphenols in carrots, zucchini, and broccoli.
Does this mean that you should only eat cooked vegetables and never eat raw vegetables again? No — in fact, it is true that cooking veggies can destroy certain nutrients. For example, vitamin C is highly unstable and thus easily degraded through oxidation, exposure to heat, or cooking in water. However, since vitamin C is prevalent in many other vegetables and fruits, scientists think that this trade-off is worth it.
Overall, scientists have demonstrated that cooked vegetables are “healthier” than raw vegetables. Allowing for enhanced absorption of nutrients and increased amounts of certain antioxidants or minerals, cooking is the way you should primarily consume your veggies. What really matters, though, isn’t how you should be eating your veggies; it’s how many veggies you consume. Whether it be through cooking your veggies or eating them raw, the best advice food experts have for you is to eat a lot of veggies!
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