Kirt:

>> Further, cooking may have been a part of the human diet for tens of
>> thousands of years. To what degree the cooking was beneficial is
>> arguable, but is too often dismissed by rawists.

IMO, cooking is advantageous only when the biotope doesn't provide a
balanced food supply. Cooking eliminates some anti-nutrients in
vegetables, so it allows to eat more. Similarly, when the only food
available is meat, cooking it eliminates parasites, so that eating in
high quantity is "safe".

>
> Peter:
>
> Which is maybe why you are getting definite taste stops with cooked
> veggies.

Having taste stops is not enough, the question would be whether the
stops are efficient or not. Let me quote Christian Schlepphorst (an
old post, Thu, 23 Jan 1997 11:17:05 +0100 (MET):

>I bought a
>low-temperature pot that "cooks" at about 70 degrees celsius (and
>takes four hours). They claim leukocytosis won't happen at low
>temperatures. I was very suprised to get *taste stops* from beets and
>potatoes prepared this way. With "conventionally" steamed veggies I
>was overeating all the time...
>So it seemed to be a good thing for me the first time BUT after three
>or four weeks some old problems of mine came back which brought my to
>raw food initially: Depression, mental dizziness, feeling separate
>from other people and nature, difficulties to concentrate, colds all
>the time. I bit later I got severe back problems. As I supposed a
>vertebra dislocation in the breast spine, I went to a chiropractor who
>relocated the vertebra. I feeled better for two days. Then the
>vertebra was out again :-(. [...]
>
>Nevertheless, I struggled the last three months with those problems
>until I finally decided to go back to all-raw (20 days ago). After
>*one* day my depression was gone again! Back is much better now. It
>seems I *have to* eat all-raw in order not to feel like shit.
>Almost immediately after going back all-raw, my constantly sore throut
>became a nice bronchitis. I expelled *huge amounts* of mucus over two
>weeks (which didn't happen to me for years). I had the strong
>impression that this was indeed a cleansing (the grains??)


Other anecdote: I noticed that commercial "raw" cashews had taste
changes. I have tried them at least 10 times and the result was
invariably the same:
 -flatulences with a *very* unpleasant smell; slight abdominal pain
 -diarrhea 12-24 hours later
 -excessive production of heat (abundant perspiration in the night,
even when the room temperature was 14 degree C = 57 F)
 -sometimes acne, a few hairs lost on my pillow...

I tried fresh cashews from Orkos, and so far had none of these
inconvenients. Of course, the stop came sooner, so I ate 50% less, but
the obvious conclusion is that the stop is not efficient with
"raw"-cooked cashews. And even when I didn't eat until the stop, the
denatured cashews were obviously not well digested.

Similarly, one of my friends cannot eat "raw"-cooked pistacchios
without reactions (allergic reactions? I don't remember), but
undenatured pistacchios are OK.

Best wishes,

Jean-Louis