Mark Moore wrote:

> Are cooked foods okay?  There is no doubt that there is a loss of
> nutrition by cooking.  However, i still don't have an opinion if cooked
> food causes harm to the body.

Here are some excerpts from an article talking about broiled potatoes...

“As far back as 1916, Maillard proved that the brown pigments and polymers
that occur in pyrolysis (chemical breakdown by heat alone)... are yielded
after prior reaction of an amino acid group with the carbonyl group of
sugars. Though apparently simple, this reaction is, in fact, highly complex,
itinerating in a spate of successive reactions and
forming melanoidins, which are brown pigments that impart a typical color to
whatever part of a food has endured higher temperatures. The number of
substances generated as a result is most impressive, yielding endless chains
of new molecules: ketones, esters, aldehydes, ethers, volatile alcohols, and
non-volatile heterocycles, etc. These innumerable substances coalesce into a
complex compound and are endowed with differing biological and chemical
attributes: they are toxic, aromatic, peroxidizing, anti-oxidizing, and
possibly mutagenic and carcinogenic (DNA fractures can be oncogenic), or
even anti-mutagenic and anti-carcinogenic. This to say that heating causes
widespread disruption in the natural order of molecules. The research work
backing up this article evidenced over 50 pyrolytic substances in broiled
potatoes, most of which originated from pyroseines and thiazole. However,
Derache also has it that “there remain, all in all, some 400 by-products to
identify.”

“Pyrolysis and risks of toxicity” by Professor R. Derache, in “Cahiers de
nutrition et de diététique” (Diet and Nutrition Journal), 1982, p 39.