Eating Raw is Not Always Best

Eating raw is not always best. A message I have blogged and now the message appears to be recognized. I have to smile as it amazes me that good old mom's advice (Brainy Gourmet advice) is not taken seriously until a food expert as in nutritionist from some institution says so. Institutions are formalized information groups of people who have come up through certain ranks and declared experts. I myself have such accreditation. I am an expert myself having a PhD in Sociology and Social Psychology. I smile about the hierarchy that exists in my faculty as hierarchies exist in all social groups. I mean if you haven't been educated at the right schools and wrote your dissertation on what the top profs are saying, you might as well give up.

I am smiling though and keep on. Especially since a landmark study published in 2002 in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry first showed that a powerful antioxidant called lycopene is released from tomatoes when they’re cooked agrees with what I already knew just listening to my nonna - Italian for grandmother.

The study found that heating tomatoes at 190.4 degrees for 30 minutes boosted levels of absorbable lycopene by 35 percent. Lycopene has been shown to help reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease and macular degeneration, a degenerative eye disease. In addition, a study published in The British Journal of Nutrition found that folks following a long-term raw-food diet had low levels of lycopene.

Let's consider that 2002 was more than twelve years ago. Interesting is that the rage is eating raw veggies on our plates and in our smoothies. Didn't anybody read that 2002 study? I have blogged a number of times that eating raw is not always the best. People are surprised. How do you know?  Being brainy about food sometimes means listening to your mom and or grandmother who have been cooking and serving food long than some newbie experts.

In my own experiences eating, I cannot digest many raw veggies. In fact, they are like poison to my body. I blogged not long ago about Dr. Kellogg who started the Battle Creek Michigan Sanitarium back in the 1870s who invented "Granola". He also came up with Corn Flakes cereal. Why? Because, he was an advocate that man is not a rabbit and should eat pre-digested foods, cooked/baked foods and not raw.

Now that information was given to us over a century ago. How did doctors and the nutritionists of today miss that? My own battles with food have been from inability to digest certain vegetables and especially in their raw state. It took a long time to realize that I cannot eat them; after all, everyone around me was saying that raw was better. Even I did not pay attention to Dr. Kellogg... enough. I have always been a fan of granola and grape nut cereal; which was developed because of Dr. Kellogg by C.W. Post.

So, let us return to the advice of good old fashioned experts ~ like the Brainy Gourmet!
Cook before you eat!