Cooked vs Raw - It’s Not What You think!
There is a raw food movement at the moment, which on many levels is nonsensical. But let’s first discuss the merits of both. The human brain developed rather rapidly in a short period of time, this is mostly due to the discovery of fire. Fire is a natural tenderizer, tenderizing food makes it more bioavailable, it is estimated that if you eat a raw carrot, you’ll only receive 25-30% of the nutrition, whereas if you cook it, you’ll obtain close to 100% of the nutrition. This goes for most foods that can be cooked, including all proteins. https://www.ted.com/talks/suzana_herculano_houzel_what_is_so_special_about_the_human_brain. The conundrum comes when you’re trying to build muscle, you’ll want as much nutrition as you can get, but when you want to lose weight/fat, you’ll try and achieve a calorie deficit. What we’d do is try to take in as much nutrition to build muscle, as this will increase the running cost of the human machine. If you feel your body fat is not coming down sufficiently, then start adding some raw vegetables, they decrease absorption of other foods eaten with them, increase motility and peristaltic action, which increases the cost to the system. It’ll prevent you from feeling as hungry on a traditional calorie deficit protocol.
Glen Krog