>If cooking food is so bad for you, then why are healing tinctures
> made from boiling the roots of herbs?

i don't know where this question comes from , but it made me want to
answer
it from my perspective.
medecines in general have the ability to change the internal
biochemistry
and thus making symptoms disapearing or changing forms. Having
symptoms
repressed in their expression doesn't necessarely correspond to a true
healing. New symptoms are often created...

Tinctures are raw plants macerated in alcohol.
The boiling down of roots is  called a decoction.

Even if a decoction have real healing properties, they bring you the
nutrients and vitality of a wild plant despite they are not ingested
in the
raw state ( that will be even more potent).

I think you are right to question the fact that cooked food is bad for
you ,
because cooking is not bad , it is just fondamentally useless. It is
not as
good as raw. it doesn't give you the best.
If you were open to extend your food intake to medicinals plants  in
their
raw state and let your sense of taste guide you,  you will benefit
from
their "healing properties" at their fullest.
Some days for example eating raw oregon grape roots make me feel very
good
and i love the bitterness of it. Other days it just tastes awfully
bitter
and that is a clear indication to me that my body doesn't want it.
Drinking the decoction with a sweetener will make it more easy to eat
this
plant , even when my body  don't want it and will be burdened by its
ingestion.
jean-claude