Tom Billings wrote: >False. Heat renders starch foods more digestible via a process known as >gelatinization. Ref: Mc-Graw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, >starch entry. Raw rhubarb and kidney beans are toxic; cooked are not. >This subject has been discussed at length before; check archives of the >list for details. Sorry Tom, but you're leaving out KEY words of significance here. Look back at what I originally said. I said "the truth of the matter is, heating food does NOTHING to enhance its nutritional value." Note the KEY word, NUTRITIONAL VALUE, not digestibility. Big difference.. No matter how you cut it, when you heat food, important innate nutrients are lost forever. Just because something will pass through your system easier without symptoms, it doesn't mean that it's nutritional content is still in its optimal form. And besides, the argument can be had for starches that we don't necessarily do the best in digesting them in the first place, as a species. Correct that certain foods in their raw state are TOXIC, but cooking them does not enhance the original nutrient content. It's my thinking that if a food is poisonous in its raw state, we probably should look a little closer at that anyway. Tom: >That is the raw "party line", but there is no scientific proof. >Anecdotal proof goes both ways... What do you mean there is no scientific PROOF? This is common knowledge. Even mainstream practitioners know that eating raw fresh fruits and vegetables provides fantastic nutrition, minus a lot of the toxic side effects of cooked food. It isn't that elusive or complex an issue. Tom: >Sorry to disappoint you, but those cultures all eat cooked food (lots >of it) and animal foods. See the book "Long Life Now" by Lee Hitchcox for >details of the Hunza diet. Wrong. They may now in these perverse modern times, but it wasn't always that way. All these societies have been infilitrated by the conveniences of modern life. White flour, refined sugar, tobacco, alcohol, conveinence foods, etc. If you take a look at some of the older text on these cultures, you'll see they have been notorious for eating a large percentage of uncooked fare, minimal animal products, and have for ages lived with a low level of stress in their lives. They most definitely DO include a lot of fresh, raw foods in their diets during the growing seasons, and eat more cooked and dried foods during the harsher months. I need not argue you this with you, because you know as well as I do, that they eat a phenomenally healthier diet than the rest of the world. And that includes a larger percentage of uncooked food than the rest of other societies throughout the world. I said it once, I'll say it again. How can it be denied that heating food destroys nutritive value? Digestibility and nutrient preservation are two distinct realms. I notice you didn't argue my point on "leukocytosis." This right here is enough "scientific evidence" for me, based on what we know of pathogens in the physiology, to make a case for uncooked food being something very worthy of in-depth analysis in terms of health and disease. Escalation of white blood cells in the bloodstream is not a good reaction to an exogenous subtance taken exogenously. I rest my case. I'm going to go back to being a lurker now. John