Why Cooking Vegetables is Bad

(My Original Blog Post: http://timemyself.com/time/health/nutrition/negative/cooking/cooking-vegetables-bad/)

As you read my sections on Nutrition and the best Fruits and Vegetables to eat, you’ll find a very large list of them and what makes them good for you, what nutrients they provide, and how best to prepare or eat them. Many great ideas are going to come from my readings on Nutrition and Health. Many people finally get to the stage where they have made a major impact in their lives to save time by eating the right way. They choose to eat Fruits and Vegetables at Breakfast Time, Lunch Time, and Dinner Time instead of Fast Food, or other sweets and Junk Foods that are very bad for them. After all of the work of finally narrowing down your selection by eating what’s right, you do what most people do and heat up or Cook Your Vegetables. You’ll continue these Bad Habits, not knowing what it means to you. Cooking your vegetables for too long can actually be a Time Wasting activity, so why continue to do it. The whole point of making Time Decisions is to make the correct ones so it’s beneficial to yourself and your Health.

According to the book You Are What You Eat by Dr. Gillian McKeith, research has showed that when food is cooked, the enzymes are destroyed in full. Research has shown when food is heated above 118 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 20 minutes; there is a complete loss of all enzymes within that specific food. In addition to this, cooking also destroys proteins. According to the book, studies sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture concluded that “cooking at 400 degrees Fahrenheit” caused a 4 to 30-fold decrease in soluble protein in steaks tested under the analysis. In addition while cooking foods, we lose essential vitamins. Studies have shown that it’s estimated that 50% or more of B vitamins are lost through cooking. B1 can be lost at as high as 96%. Up to 72% of biotin can be lost. Up to 97% of folic acid lost and up to 80% of vitamin C lost. Top researchers have concluded up to 85% of all nutrients can be lost from cooking foods including Vegetables.

This is why you should eat Vegetables raw whenever possible, as they still have their full enzymes. Remember that you are slowly destroying them as you cook them. They are destroyed when you cook, steam, bake, saute’, fry, roast, stew, boil, pasteurize or can them. Also very hot foods have been known to cause other problems in the human body, please do your research on this. One example of trying to eat your Vegetables raw may be to cook a nice soup broth until it’s warm, then chop up some raw Vegetables, maybe slightly warmed up, and put them into the broth to make a vegetable stew. This way you can keep the enzymes in tact. The message I am trying to get across is that I can’t stress enough to you how much more important it is to eat Vegetables rather than Junk Foods and Fast Foods for every meal. If you are going to go through this work 3-5 meals per day, over your entire Lifetime, that could be 30,000 to 60,000 more meals that you eat. Why not create Good Habits, instead of creating neutral or Bad Habits, especially if it’s going to be Compounded Over Time for the next 30-60 years.