Thomas E. Billings wrote:
> Anything heated above 118 deg. F is "cooked" and dead, because the enzymes
> are "killed".

> COMMENT:
> Let me quote from "The Germination of Seeds", 4th ed., A.M. Mayer and A.
> Poljakoff-Mayber; Pergamon Press, pg. 53:

> "High temperatures up to about 90 deg. C are tolerated by many seeds such as
> radish, turnip and poppy, as shown by David (1936) who studied oil-
> containing seeds. Above 90 deg C the viability of seeds is greatly lowered."

> Thus we see that some seeds can be heated above the temperatures where enzymes
> "die", and even to the point that the seeds are "leukocytic", and yet the
> seeds STILL SPROUT!  What this means is that:
> * enzymes are not the "life force"
> * the rawist obsession with enzymes is misplaced
> * the rawist obsession with leukocytes is probably misplaced as well.

>It might not be valid to compare what happens to seeds that are heated with mature
plants which contain enzymes that have been biosynthesized
during the growth of the plant. Seeds do not contain all the enzymes
that are in mature plants. In other words, that heated seeds are still
viable is not a reason to conclude that enzymes in mature plants can be
heated to those temperatures without losing their activity.

My best, Ellie