Tom:

> Are cooked foods close enough in composition to their raw counterparts
> that we can digest them anyway (as we are omnivores, able to digest a
> wide variety of foods and survive on radically different diets)? As
> an example, can I digest cooked starch because my ancestors ate raw
> starch foods in pre-fire days, and the chemical composition is
> altered some, but not that much, by cooking? Another example: can I
> digest cooked vegetables because I can digest raw veggies, and their
> chemical composition is similar?

I don't have any information on the subject, only vague opinions. The
obvious things on the subject are:
 1) Animals can digest cooked food. Thus, cooked starch, proteins, etc...
are probably close enough to their raw counterparts to be digested.
 2) The only scientifically recognized inconvenients of cooking are
the new chemical species, such as: Maillard molecules (AGEs), Polycyclic
Aromatic Hydrocarbons, etc... and not the sugars or proteins themselves.
 3) The intolerances to proteins that we know (casein, etc) are insensitive
to cooking.
 4) Cooked starch is more digestible that raw starch.
 5) Cooking accelerates some naturally occuring reactions. For instance,
I find that aged meat tastes a bit like cooked meat.

However, some people have allergic reactions when they eat cooked food,
but there is no way to know if the allergy is due to the cooked proteins
or to the "abnormal" chemical species (Maillard and Co).

> Is grain close enough in chemical composition to say, raw starchy tubers,
> that we can digest it OK?

IMO, grain contains more protein. As for the starch part, I don't find
unsprouted grains very tasty (which may indicate that they are not
very digestible), and sprouted grains contain less starch.

> Is dairy close enough in chemical composition to other foods (that is,
> it is similar to an average of meat + fruit, hence within the "range"
> defined by digestible "original" foods), that many of us can digest it?

Lactose is a sugar that is specific to milk, but even if we neglect that
factor, we would have to mix fruit+water+very fatty meat (indigestible
for most people). But on the other hand, every baby is able to digest
milk.

Best wishes,

Jean-Louis
[log in to unmask]