Save money and the planet by not cooking?

[Will]

Originally Posted by lucille

I felt like such a redneck having a deer in the back of my station wagon overnight.

Not at all! I think there's something very noble about making an effort to consume meat that otherwise would've been wasted.

[Kathryn]

"You cannot go against nature,
'cause when you do,
going against nature
is a part of nature, too."

To add some facts to the discussion: http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-...ooked-2f.shtml

"Overall vitamin losses due to cooking are relatively modest. ... Average vitamin losses after correction for water loss range from about 10 to 25% in most cases. ... [D]ietary variety is as significant to nutrition as cooking. ... [T]here is a strong case to be made that variety is at least as important as cooking practices: someone eating 95% raw fruit is far more likely to be vitamin-deficient than someone eating a 100% cooked diet, but including a variety of foods like liver, green vegetables, etc." Cooking increases the digestibility of most starches (in other words, our bodies' ability to convert the energy in the food into energy we can burn) by 2 to 12 times, and also increases the digestibility of the most common plant-based proteins (those in grains and common legumes such as soy).

In terms of saving fuel, you would have to think more globally than just what's going on inside your house. If you are able to eat purely local, that's one thing. But if you're comparing the fuel cost per unit of nutrition for something like fresh raw strawberries or peas shipped on refrigerated trucks from across the country, vs. processed equivalents shipped by train, the amount of fuel used in cooking or reheating pales in comparison to the amount of fuel uses in transport.

In the grand scheme of things, I believe the ability to broaden our food procurement and storage strategies and increase macronutrient availability through cooking has been a key aspect of our species' ability to populate the planet, and without this critical technology we would not have been able to free ourselves from an endless animal routine of grazing and instead devote our time to thining, creating, and posting on the Internet. Cooking food predates Homo sapiens, and so it is accurate to say that we are an animal whose alimentary canal is entirely evolved in the context of a cooked-food diet. What did our ancestors eat? Whatever the hell they could get their hands on.

[hermione]

I've been watching this thread for a while and finally thought I'd chime in with my two cents. I think it's very good to consider the environment in everything you do; if every person makes an effort to save one bit of energy, it adds up and makes an overall difference. But about this argument that cooking/processing food being bad and unnatural:

Yes, it's good to try to save as much energy as possible. And yes, it is true that some or most foods may contain the most nutrition when eaten uncooked. And yes, a lot of processed foods are not healthy for you. But not all processing of foods is for the worse. For instance, it has been shown that frozen fruits and vegetables contain just as much, and sometimes more, nutrition than fresh (confirmed by the FDA in 1998). The reason:

"Nutritionally speaking, frozen veggies are similar to -- and sometimes better than -- fresh ones. This makes sense, considering that these veggies are usually flash-frozen (which suspends their "aging" and nutrient losses) immediately after being harvested. Frozen veggies were often picked in the peak of their season, too."
(Frozen Vegetables are Hot! by Elaine Magee, MPH, RD; Fresh vs. Frozen? Choosing your fruits and vegetables by H. K. Jones, RD)


As to the "naturalness" of cooking, humans have been cooking for tens of thousands of years. According to Culinary History, Evolution of Cookery Pt I:

"From whenever it began, however, roasting spitted meats over fires remained virtually the sole culinary technique until the Palaeolithic Period, when the Aurignacian people of southern France apparantly began to steam their food over hot embers by wrapping it in wet leaves."

The Paleolithic period begins somewhere around 2.5 million years ago to 10,000 BC. The Aurignacian people dated between 32,000 and 26,000 BC.

Cooking as a biological trait by Wrangham R. and Conklin-Brittain N. of the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, states that "No human foragers have been recorded as living without cooking" and suggests that it may have been obligatory for human evolution, and our biology has adapted to it.

"The possibility that cooking is obligatory is supported by calculations suggesting that a diet of raw food could not supply sufficient calories for a normal hunter-gatherer lifestyle. In particular, many plant foods are too fiber-rich when raw, while most raw meat appears too tough to allow easy chewing. If cooking is indeed obligatory for humans but not for other apes, this means that human biology must have adapted to the ingestion of cooked food (i.e. food that is tender and low in fiber) in ways that no longer allow efficient processing of raw foods. Cooking has been practiced for ample time to allow the evolution of such adaptations. Digestive adaptations have not been investigated in detail but may include small teeth, small hind-guts, large small intestines, a fast gut passage rate, and possibly reduced ability to detoxify. The adoption of cooking can also be expected to have had far-reaching effects on such aspects of human biology as life-history, social behavior, and evolutionary psychology. Since dietary adaptations are central to understanding species evolution, cooking appears to have been a key feature of the environment of human evolutionary adaptedness."

So it would seem that the practice of cooking has been around for so long that it might be considered human nature. But everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion. The human species has evolved so successfully that if cooking will only make our planet more overpopulated, perhaps it isn't a bad idea for some of us to stem the development a bit by going against evolutionary history and stop cooking for a few centuries.

Originally Posted by NaturallyCheap

English is not my first language. In chinese there not such as past tense, grammar crap. I speak the english perfectly fine. My written English need touch up.

English isn't my first language either; it was Chinese too. But, I think that if you choose to live in a country and participate in communities (like this forum) where the primary language is English, it's not very nice to refer to parts of their language as "crap". Sorry if it offends you, but I just feel that you should respect the languages you choose to speak. Just another two cents.

Originally Posted by NaturallyCheap

Would I move to the tropics if i was living in the cold climate areas. YES, any day.

The tropics would get awfully crowded if everyone living in cold climate areas decided to pick up and move there.

[NaturallyCheap]

Lets break thing apart and look at them closely base purely on what you posted.

Originally Posted by Kathryn

http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-...ooked-2f.shtml

Thats the big anti veg/vegan/raw website. I sure you can find anti anything on the internet.

Originally Posted by Kathryn

"Overall vitamin losses due to cooking are relatively modest. ... Average vitamin losses after correction for water loss range from about 10 to 25% in most cases. ... [D]ietary variety is as significant to nutrition as cooking. ... [T]here is a strong case to be made that variety is at least as important as cooking practices: someone eating 95% raw fruit is far more likely to be vitamin-deficient than someone eating a 100% cooked diet, but including a variety of foods like liver, green vegetables, etc." Cooking increases the digestibility of most starches (in other words, our bodies' ability to convert the energy in the food into energy we can burn) by 2 to 12 times, and also increases the digestibility of the most common plant-based proteins (those in grains and common legumes such as soy).

So wouldn't you want an extra 10 to 25% extra vitamins? So what about the carbs that are caramelized, protein that is denatured and fats that is rancid in cooking. Water make up the bulk of food volume, then Carbs/protein/fats make up pretty much whats is left, while vitamins/minerals/enzyme/co-enzyme/ and alot more yet to be discover ..... make up insignificant volume. Wouldn't it be more logical to think about what happens to the water, carbs, protein, fats under effecting of applying heat to food first?

Is there more fruits and veggie in the world than what ever you can cook? Most people think of fruits of veggie is apple, orange, lettuce, celery or the tiny little fruits/veg section in the supermarket. Through out the year I eat over 100+ fruits and veggie. I have only met a couple of people who can match my variety throughout the year. The farmers at the market at always surprise about me asking for this and that fruit that is in season. Most of the non common fruits I get for FREE, boxes of it.

The body is run by glucose and to a certain extent fructose, both simple carbs. Starches that is cooked have some of its complex carbs converted to simple carbs. Cooked starches are no longer 100% complex carbs, they are a mix of simple and complex, so all the simple carbs relative to complex carbs are 2-12 times more digestible? So what happens to the portion still complex carbs, How about 2-12 time more indigestible? Doesn't it make more sense to just eat simple carbs for that 2-12 more digestible feeling?

If the protein in soy or legumes are less digestible, wouldn't it make sense to just to consume highly digestible veggie that is high in protein? E.g broccoli. Why go through all that effort just to make a couple of more thing more of this and that?

The longest ever and still going nutrition study is done by T. Colin Campbell(http://www.thechinastudy.com/authors.html) says that 5-10% is more than enough to met anyone proteins needs.

Originally Posted by Kathryn

In terms of saving fuel, you would have to think more globally than just what's going on inside your house. If you are able to eat purely local, that's one thing. But if you're comparing the fuel cost per unit of nutrition for something like fresh raw strawberries or peas shipped on refrigerated trucks from across the country, vs. processed equivalents shipped by train, the amount of fuel used in cooking or reheating pales in comparison to the amount of fuel uses in transport.

So we have already wasted energy in transporting the food. Let waste more and cook as well? Then waste more again in digestion?

what is fuel per unit of nutrition? Never heard of that. Something new to learn?

Originally Posted by Kathryn

In the grand scheme of things, I believe the ability to broaden our food procurement and storage strategies and increase macronutrient availability through cooking has been a key aspect of our species' ability to populate the planet, and without this critical technology we would not have been able to free ourselves from an endless animal routine of grazing and instead devote our time to thining, creating, and posting on the Internet. Cooking food predates Homo sapiens, and so it is accurate to say that we are an animal whose alimentary canal is entirely evolved in the context of a cooked-food diet. What did our ancestors eat? Whatever the hell they could get their hands on.

What about the known and unknown nutrient that is destroyed? When nutrition was first mention after WW2 they thought there were only about 10, then they increase the number to 100, then 1000, 10,000. Now they are telling us we have yet to estimate the number.Homo sapiens been on the planet for 2million years. Fire uses began around 10, 000 years ago. So 10000/2000000 that 0.005% of our existence on earth we cooked our food. Our ancestor for the 99.9995% of the time ate food that was easy to obtain. Food that doesn't try to get away is easy to obtain. I can sneak up on a mango, however sneaking up on an animal is a tough act. So would you bet your life on 99.99995% success rate or the other 0.005%?

On another note. Have you been bushing walking in the wild without bringing any food and relied on nature to supply you with food? I been past fields of grain, grass, animals my mouth never waters nor do I feel excited to run up and grab that food. However all the people I ever walked with always notice this and that fruit!

Originally Posted by hermione

"Nutritionally speaking, frozen veggies are similar to -- and sometimes better than -- fresh ones. This makes sense, considering that these veggies are usually flash-frozen (which suspends their "aging" and nutrient losses) immediately after being harvested. Frozen veggies were often picked in the peak of their season, too."

Coming from the FDA means caution about the information. They recently approved cloned meat is just as good as their farmed animals. Check the FDA history and you will understand why I take such precaution about what the FDA approves. Both website never points to the actual FDA report.

Cold slows down the progress of decomposition. I don't what it means by "fresh" in America. However lets just say fresh is when you pick, then eat the food you just have picked immediately. When riped food is picked decomposition begins, so when we freeze the food the nutrient content increase? Where did the food get that EXTRA nutrient from? Not from the ground or the air like everything plant does. Every fruit farm I worked on picked their produce green. When its at the fruits shop its still a little green so they can sell it for a few more days and at a higher price.

Originally Posted by hermione

Cooking as a biological trait by Wrangham R. and Conklin-Brittain N. of the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, states that "No human foragers have been recorded as living without cooking" and suggests that it may have been obligatory for human evolution, and our biology has adapted to it.........................

Anthropologist also say we need 500,000 to 1 million says to evolve a TINY bit! Comparative anatomist also say "animals that are physical similar structure thrive on similar foods". Human are also subclass along with chimps, bobobos, monkey etc into Anthropoid Primate. All of the Anthropoid Primate have the same digestion system, they all eats fruits and veg. Never seen any wild animal with any form of degenerative disease! Seen lots of animals having health problem under captivity.

So we have been cooking our food for 10, 000, however that very same people say we need half million years at least to evolve. How did they speed up the 400,000 years difference?

How fruits does most people eat? About 2 apples or oranges and they are full! All the anthropoid Primate eats about 3-5kg of fruits a day. From that amount of fruit the calories is about 2000 to 4000, just about right for sedentary to active lifestyle. How many people actually eat that much fruit and veggie? None of the anthropoid Primates go drinking water from the river. Not if more than 50% of the food you consume is water volume.

Originally Posted by hermione

Fresh vs. Frozen? Choosing your fruits and vegetables by H. K. Jones, RD >> Fruits and vegetables are the nutritional powerhouses of your diet. They are brimming with vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytochemicals.

Cooking as a biological trait >> many plant foods are too fiber-rich when raw.

Contradiction statements. One says have lots of fiber. one says too firber-rich.

Originally Posted by hermione

The tropics would get awfully crowded if everyone living in cold climate areas decided to pick up and move there.

Just recently came into light that smoking is bad for you. Every smoker knows smoking is bad for them, so how many actually care to the extend to do something about their health?

P.S Didn't mean to put down the english language.

[lucille]

Here's a question. Has anyone else tried using a solar oven? I mentioned it in passing earlier that I planned on finally doing this when summer finally hits here. Mother Earth News and a few other sites have detailed plans for these. They seem to be a bit of an inexact science for cooking times too. They seem like they would be a great way to cook those things that really need it (like lentils and meat) in the summer.

[Kathryn]

Originally Posted by NaturallyCheap

Homo sapiens been on the planet for 2million years. Fire uses began around 10, 000 years ago.

These "fact" are wrong by orders of magnitude (try: Homo sapiens has been around for ~250,000 years at best, and fire around for twice as long). It seems, pardon the pun, fruitless to engage in a serious debate on the matter of the evolution of the human alimentary system.

[Kathryn]

As an interesting factoid related to the evolution of the digestive system over relatively short periods of time, you can look at the distribution of the genes for lactose intolerance, and see that populations that domesticated herd animals within the past 10,000 years have evolved to accommodate that change in diet. It does not take "millions of years" for small but significant evolutionary changes to occur, such as the ability to efficiently digest lactose as adults.

[NaturallyCheap]

Originally Posted by Kathryn

These "fact" are wrong by orders of magnitude (try: Homo sapiens has been around for ~250,000 years at best, and fire around for twice as long). It seems, pardon the pun, fruitless to engage in a serious debate on the matter of the evolution of the human alimentary system.

Sourced: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens

Following your numbers 20 000 / 250 000 = 0.08. so for 0.8% for our existence we been cooking food? Is that even a success you will settle for?

Originally Posted by Kathryn

As an interesting factoid related to the evolution of the digestive system over relatively short periods of time, you can look at the distribution of the genes for lactose intolerance, and see that populations that domesticated herd animals within the past 10,000 years have evolved to accommodate that change in diet. It does not take "millions of years" for small but significant evolutionary changes to occur, such as the ability to efficiently digest lactose as adults.

Sourced from?

it say 500,000 to 1 million!

Originally Posted by lucille

Here's a question. Has anyone else tried using a solar oven? I mentioned it in passing earlier that I planned on finally doing this when summer finally hits here. Mother Earth News and a few other sites have detailed plans for these. They seem to be a bit of an inexact science for cooking times too. They seem like they would be a great way to cook those things that really need it (like lentils and meat) in the summer.

Most people can't even get fresh fruit and veggies. They live cold climate, what do you expect a solar cooker will do for them? lol

[Will]

Here's a question. Has anyone else tried using a solar oven?

That sounds really neat. If you set one up I would love to hear more about your experience.

Thanks for all the great links everyone. I'm learning a lot from this thread.

This thread reminded me of an old Wise Bread article about why fruits and vegetables are so expensive:

From the NY Times (via Consumerist):

As a rule, processed foods are more “energy dense” than fresh foods: they contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which makes them both less filling and more fattening. These particular calories also happen to be the least healthful ones in the marketplace, which is why we call the foods that contain them “junk.” Drewnowski concluded that the rules of the food game in America are organized in such a way that if you are eating on a budget, the most rational economic strategy is to eat badly — and get fat.

***

[T]he real price of fruits and vegetables between 1985 and 2000 increased by nearly 40 percent while the real price of soft drinks (aka liquid corn) declined by 23 percent. The reason the least healthful calories in the supermarket are the cheapest is that those are the ones the farm bill encourages farmers to grow.

***

The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem of America’s children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow. The farm bill essentially treats our children as a human Disposall for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce.

And here's a cool Sciam article following up on the Wrangham study Hermione mentioned. It sounds like his theory has a lot of promise, but it is still hotly debated among evolutionary biologists. No wonder we have a tough time reaching a consensus here at Wise Bread.

Naturally Cheap, can you give us a list of the kind of fruits and vegetables you enjoy everyday? I think that would be a very interesting list!

[hermione]

Originally Posted by NaturallyCheap

Contradiction statements. One says have lots of fiber. one says too firber-rich.

These two statements are not contradictory because they come out of different contexts. They come from 2 different articles about different time periods and settings.

One is about early man in the hunter-gatherer age when people had to comb the environment for edible foods. The writers are mostly likely not talking about carrots and broccoli. They didn't have gardens of domesticated fruits and vegetables brought from all over the world; they had to go through forests, plains, brush, etc. and look for things they could eat. While they may have had some sort of fruit and vegetable-like foods, most of their choices were probably more similar to grass, tree bark and leaves, etc., and a lot of this type of plant matter would be hard to digest raw.

The other article extolling the virtues of fiber-rich fruits and vegetables was written about eating in the 21st century where people have so many different kinds of food to choose from that many of us often don't eat enough fiber. That is why this article is saying fiber-rich is good.

So these are 2 different situations, thousands of years apart, and therefore not contradictory when looked at in their original context.

Originally Posted by NaturallyCheap

Most people can't even get fresh fruit and veggies. They live cold climate, what do you expect a solar cooker will do for them? lol

If you read her post more carefully, you'll see that she is talking about using a solar oven in the summertime, not in the dead of winter.