Having long been "troubled" by the relative unattractiveness of both
domesticated and (esp) wild vegetables, I am seriously wondering if cooked
veggies may have been (are?) useful in the human diet. Three things have
stirred my particular stew on the matter: Christian's post about the
snail-eating kid who would eat cooked veggies above all else at times,
ideas in Pt.2 of Ward's H&B interview, and the overboard NFL line that
"cooked foods are poison" (supported by Bob Avery apparently). What bothers
me is that I pretty much agree, though I would come in as "cooked food is
not as useful as raw food" but it still shouldn't be a sacred cow, so to
speak. Do I really believe in such simplicity? Granted it is attractively
simple, but still. (BTW, I'm mostly talking here about the infamous leafy
greens we are all supposed to be scarfing down, not so much tubers or
fruit-vegetables...)

How's about this?: Perhaps...

Raw veggies contain important nutrients (both discovered and undiscovered).
The instinctive "stops" are as much a reaction to natuarlly -occuring
pesticides (n-pests, I'll call them) in most plant parts as it is a
reaction to the satiation of the need for important nutrients. In other
words, the organism's ability to "nuetralize" the pesticides is limited and
is playing a role in the taste changes. So...upon cooking the veggies, the
n-pests are neutralized externally relieving the organism of the burden of
neutralizing (with enzymes or even luecocytes?) them internally (big
assumption!). Further, that the increased ability to eat more (cooked)
veggies and benefit from more (non-thermobile) nutrients, outweighs the
cost of problematic Mallaird molecules created (even bigger assumption!).

In simpler terms, is there a value in, say, broccoli that would be useful
to me, but that I don't get because raw broccoli is unattractive for the
most part (the stalks maybe, but the tops never). Would steamed broccoli be
better than no brocolli (which is about how much I've eaten this last year)?

My own reactions to such a hypothesis include:

1] The loss of enzymes may be negligable (esp relative to higher calorie
fruits and RAFs) since leafy greens have few enzymes anyway.

2] The minerals which are probably so important in leafy greens may become
denatured to the point of trouble. NH, which I have read (too?) much of, is
always on about cooked greens being the cause of all sorts of troubles.

3] Though I have smelled cooked veggie smells detoxing from me, they are
more cassarole/soup/stew smells. The detoxes involving dairy, meat and
bread smells are much more troubling. What this may mean is very unclear
since I ate very little steamed spinach as a kid :) :( :)

4] Do cooked veggies exhibit a taste change to speak of, for you'all? Might
our "instinct" respond to the minerals/nutrients left after cooking with a
taste-change and not so much to the (assumed neutralized) n-pests?

5] And, again, I wonder: what cooked foods do you'all seem to tolerate?

Cheers,
Kirt