The effect of processing on foods has caused loss of nutrients such that it has become increasingly mandatory in several countries to fortify foods such as wheat flour, sugar, rice, salt, and a host of others with micronutrients.
What edible substances are beneficial or harmful in our fruits, experts say, can only be found out through the mouth. By implication, cooking is not essential for every category of foods, as this has robbed consumers of necessary nutrients, which are most active and beneficial to the body in the raw form.
Technically, cooking is a heat process either by wood, coal, gas, electricity or steam applied to food materials to modify the inherent native structure of the dominant constituent nutrients like carbohydrates, fats and protein. The heating (cooking) makes them easier for digestion and assimilation by the body.
However, many micronutrients in the class of vitamins (both fat and water soluble types) and minerals are greatly lost in the process, especially for fruits and vegetables.
One of the plausible reasons for the preparation of cole slaw with raw lettuce, carrot, cucumber, and other fruits and vegetables is that consumers want to explore the potential richness of the raw food. On the other hand, naturopaths and alternative medicine practitioners have recommended raw fruits and vegetables for the cure of certain ailments.
For instance, it is widely reported that consumption of raw form of garlic presents a more potent active ingredients than subscribing to garlic extracts, which were also made to kill the odour. The same can be said for ginger, onion, carrot, asparagus and a host of others.
Cooking every food reduces its vitality and unfortunately in metropolitan markets like in Lagos, such unwholesome practice on fruits like heating in water to aid ripening, is commonly reported. Such treatment robs the food of the necessary vitamins and minerals. In this type of case, consumers are left with virtually fibre.
Fruits, vegetables and other food materials contain inherent enzymes, which are essential in building and maintaining health. There are essentially living cells in all fresh foods, but are also temperature-sensitive being demobilized at about 60 degrees Celsius and above. With this degree of heat, the enzymes are put out of action and the body is tasked because it now relies on its own enzymes to effect subsequent breakdown of the food.
One side effect is that the body will take a little and the rest would be converted to by-products that could be toxic. Invariably, these toxic materials could result in sicknesses and diseases. When the body enzyme system is strained by the extra work on ingested food, the body immune system can drop thus jeopardizing its chances of fighting unwanted disease-causing micro-organisms.
A nutrition expert once said that, “Most of us have tried many ‘quick fixes’ such as medication and crash diets to solve our weight or health challenges. If these methods do not work (they seldom do), we should be willing to modify our cooked food lifestyle.”
Perhaps a return to more consumption of raw foods, of which the city dweller has been robbed, would put him back on the path of good health and remove the strain of medical bill.