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