How can nutritional make up change through cooking?

[Rocksteadyeddie]

Like this??



The amount of fat, for example, seems to increase once they are cooked.

[calibrax]

Because water evaporates when it's cooked from frozen. So 100g frozen is not equivalent to 100g cooked. Say you lost 20g of water, then 80g cooked product would compare directly to the 100g frozen and the numbers would be the same.

[Spitfire2]

at a guess, once cooked each chip (?) will weigh less due to water content evaporating so it will take more cooked chips to make 100g than uncooked - hence more fat etc.

[Shaolin]

The answer is therefore to suck them from frozen.

[Rocksteadyeddie]

That would make sense.

[FunkyNige]

Spitfire2 said:

at a guess, once cooked each chip (?) will weigh less due to water content evaporating so it will take more cooked chips to make 100g than uncooked - hence more fat etc.

It's actually much more complicated than that; the nutritional values on the packet are based on how much energy is given off when the food is burned, not digested.
There was an experiment on snakes where they fed the snakes raw steak and cooked steak - the raw steaks used 23% more energy to digest than the cooked ones, so the snakes effectively got more energy from them.

It's been suggested that cooking food to put more energy into it gave us the energy needed to evolve quicker ( book).

If you're subscribed to New Scientist you can read about it here -
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327171.200...

[Tanguero]

Shaolin said:

The answer is therefore to suck them from frozen make real chips. In dripping...

[Simpo Two]

They put information like this on packets and expect buyers with the intellect of Kerry Katona to understand it...

[grumbledoak]

FunkyNige said:

It's been suggested that cooking food to put more energy into it gave us the energy needed to evolve quicker ( book).

Not being subscribed I cannot read that. But it sounds like a complete load of boswellox.

The energy we get from food is from the chemical reactions we can obtain after we've digested it. The idea that putting energy into it in the form of heat will give us more energy sounds as ludicrous as eating Uranium to individually become nuclear powered.

Edited by grumbledoak on Friday 31st December 22:06

[calibrax]

Simpo Two said:

They put information like this on packets and expect buyers with the intellect of Kerry Katona to understand it be able to read

EFA...

[FunkyNige]

grumbledoak said:

FunkyNige said:

It's been suggested that cooking food to put more energy into it gave us the energy needed to evolve quicker ( book).

Not being subscribed I cannot read that. But it sounds like a complete load of boswellox.

Sorry, it's hard to tell what's subscriber only content, this is the link to the publisher's site -
http://www.unmpress.com/Book.php?id=11968249295574

The general idea is "Cooking also allows us to absorb more energy from food by denaturing protein and breaking down indigestible carbohydrates such as cellulose into more digestible pieces".

[Rocksteadyeddie]

Isn't that the other side of the argument which says that raw food is actually much better for us given that food shortage is generally not a concern in the developed world? In other words it is more difficult for our bodies to break down, will keep us feeling fuller for longer, and doesn't have any of the nutrients destroyed through the cooking process.

[Silver993tt]

Rocksteadyeddie said:

Isn't that the other side of the argument which says that raw food is actually much better for us given that food shortage is generally not a concern in the developed world? In other words it is more difficult for our bodies to break down, will keep us feeling fuller for longer, and doesn't have any of the nutrients destroyed through the cooking process.

However, some foods such as some vegetables require cooking in order for the human body to extract nutrients more efficiently, otherwise they pass through the digestive tract and 'wasted'.