Valeology: how does heat kill the potential of our food?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

It is known that hot food does not exist in nature at all (apparently, the prey of a predator has the highest temperature, that is, no more than 36 - 38 ° C). It is no coincidence, therefore, back in the 18th century. the famous French paleontologist Cuvier noted that for tens of thousands of years of man's existence on Earth, his gastrointestinal tract has not undergone any changes and is still designed to digest raw food, not cooked on fire.

Indeed, in the morphological and functional relations in the human digestive apparatus there are no mechanisms that would be designed for hot food. Moreover, under the action of the latter, the breakdown of proteins occurs in those parts of the digestive tract that are in direct contact with it (recall that proteins break down already at a temperature of 46 - 48 ° C).

In particular, under the influence of hot food, changes in the gastric mucosa occur (with damage to the mucous layer itself and a violation of juice secretion and production of enzymes), the absence of a protective mucous layer leads to autolysis, when gastric juice begins to digest the wall of its own stomach, forming an ulcer.

In heat-treated food, its own structure is largely disrupted. The proteins of the product are destroyed, including the significant part of the vitamins and enzymes contained in it. The latter play an important role in ensuring the so-called autolysis, in which they carry out intracellular digestion of food consumed by a person and thereby facilitate its assimilation.

Autolysis provides almost 50% of the digestion of food by its own enzymes, and digestive juices only activate the mechanisms of autolysis. Inhibition of the mechanisms of autolysis leads to the fact that food is not completely digested in the gastrointestinal tract, some of its structures are preserved, which makes it difficult to assimilate and contaminates the body. Thus, the assimilation of thermally processed food by the body costs it a more expensive energy price and metabolic disorders.

During high-temperature processing, the structure of carbohydrates (in particular, complex ones - fiber and starch) is disturbed, mineral substances are washed out (during cooking), etc. Naturally, the consequences of eating such food affect almost all parts of the digestive tract (not to mention metabolism). Thus, the loss of the bactericidal and anti-inflammatory properties of such food deprives it of its ability to disinfect the oral cavity, creating conditions for diseases of the teeth and gums.

Cooked food is easy to chew, which reduces blood flow to the teeth. The situation is aggravated by the fact that calcium, which is outside the natural biocomplexes, is poorly absorbed, therefore the teeth lack it. To neutralize the excess acidity that occurs in the oral cavity due to the consumption of food rich in carbohydrates, fats and table salt, the body receives the necessary calcium by washing it out of the teeth and bones.

Digested food contains very few bioregulators (plant hormones, enzymes, vitamins), which leads to disruption of neurochemical mechanisms, due to which a person has a feeling of satiety - as a result, a sense of proportion in food is lost (by the way, passive chewing also contributes to this), which leads to overeating. In the intestine, such food provokes the reproduction of pathological microflora, the waste products of which are toxic in nature and, being absorbed into the blood, disrupt the course of metabolic processes.

In addition, a decrease in the amount of fiber that stimulates intestinal motility leads to a slowdown in the passage of feces in the large intestine, from which water is actively absorbed, which leads to constipation, colitis, polyps, cancer and other diseases of this part of the digestive tract.

Under the influence of high temperature, the alkaline reaction characteristic of most products is disrupted, therefore, in the body, the acid-base balance is shifted to the acidic side with all the consequences mentioned above. Deficiency of vitamins, enzymes and other biologically active substances leads to difficulty in the functions of the liver and disruption of its activity, which, with the huge role of the liver in ensuring vital activity, provokes disturbances in the state of the whole organism as a whole.

The endocrine glands also suffer from the consumption of food exposed to high temperatures, since for the synthesis of hormones they require highly active natural complexes that have already been destroyed during the preparation of such food.

One of the protective mechanisms preventing the possible adverse effect of harmful substances contained in food is the so-called food leukocytosis: when food enters the oral cavity, leukocytes are rapidly concentrated in the intestinal walls, ready to suppress the action of these substances. This reaction lasts about 1 - 1, 5 hours.

Cooked food, most often acidic, increases food leukocytosis, weakening the body and lowering the body's immune properties. At the same time, raw plant food, which has, firstly, most often an alkaline or neutral reaction, and secondly, itself contains biologically active components of the fight against pathogens, reduces food leukocytosis and saves the body's defenses.

Thus, when exposed to high temperatures, food loses its energy potential, the most valuable part, bioplasma, disappears; the structure of food is destroyed, as a result of which its proteins, vitamins, enzymes are no longer able to fully perform their functions