Most of its nutrients? That's a little extreme. Average vitamin loss range from about 10 to 25% in most cases. Cooking destroys some nutrients, yet enhances the absorption of others. For example, by cooking your dark green leafy vegetables, studies show you may be destroying half of the antioxidant carotenoids. At the same time, cooking may double carotenoid bioavailability. In the end your body might wind up with the same amount. Cooking might reduce cancer risk by destroying some of the pesticides in non-organic produce, but cooking also destroys enzymes that have beneficial effects.
Cooking most definitely destroys a great part of the nutrients in most vegetables. This is not debatable. Even when the loss is of only 10%, you'll still be throwing away part of the nutrients, so I don't know how this serves as a consolation prize.
As for absoption, I mentioned that there are studies that show that steaming broccoli slightly increases the bioavailability of it's nutrients, but that there are as many studies that show that this does not happen. To play it safe you should eat it raw. The Human Being is an animal in terms of physiology, and animals don't eat cooked foods. Just because we developed brains that tell us that cooking certain foods makes it taste better is irrelevant in terms of health. Nature doesen't care about your palate.
The bottom line is; we should eat a combination of both cooked AND raw vegetables.
This statement of yours makes absolutely no sense. If cooking increases the bioavalability of nutrients while destroying some of it, then it is neutral in terms of benefit - you get the same amount of nutrients as raw vegetables give you in the end. So eating a combination of raw and cooked vegetables will give you the same amount of nutrients as eating all raw or all cooked vegetables. Notwithstanding, what we know suggests that eating it all raw is better.
SUCKMYMUSCLE
