David Mendosa
Tuesday, October 27, 2009Raw-foodists report a sense of well-being, better physical functioning, less pain, more vitality, and improved emotional and social performance. Researchers have found improved serum cholesterol and triglyceride values. Raw foodists, unlike people who cook their food, also don't need to be concerned about the Maillard reaction, which we know as advanced end products (AGEs).
On the other hand, raw diets cause health problems. They include low bone mass in the back and hips, low levels of vitamin B12, low levels of the good HDL cholesterol and high levels of homocysteine, which may cause heart disease.Those side effects don't show up right away. But others do. Eating nothing but raw food can make you pee a lot. The participants in studies of raw food diets were constantly hungry. Still, the basic problem with a raw food diet is that it doesn't give us enough energy, Dr. Wrangham concludes.
All of us can appreciate how cooking makes our food safer, improves the taste of our food, and reduces spoilage. It lets us open, cut, or mash tough foods. But few of us appreciate the key benefit, that cooking increases how much energy we get from food.
http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/92498/cooking-made-human
