Cooking Food - Positive and Negative Aspects

Cooking food - methods, techniques or systems, principles

Cooking is a physical process that transforms raw foods into foods more suitable for human consumption. Obviously, this is a generic definition, which "does not go well" with the theories of nutritional preservation of foods; therefore, it is ONLY partially correct and shareable. Indeed, through some PROLONGED cooking

the heat-sensitive molecules are partially or completely annihilated
the digestibility of some products is drastically reduced by increasing the gastric and intestinal residence times.

Paradoxically, cooking was born with the intention of promoting the digestibility of food and in fact, as we will see below, in these terms the appropriate use of heat on food has an effect indisputably POSITIVE.

Cooking food: positive aspects

Cooking food is an "operation that has several advantages:

Among these, the first is undoubtedly the transformation of NON-edible food into EDIBLE, among which we mention: cereals, legumes and some vegetables and tubers such as: asparagus, potatoes, eggplant, etc.
Secondly, from a microbiological point of view, cooking food is able to make raw foods MORE "SAFE which, if not contaminated with Gram negative (-) bacteria or spores in general, after heat treatment, gain healthiness and edibility. .
Cooking food makes them more CHEWABLE and DIGESTIBLE (except for stews), an aspect that should not be overlooked especially for the nutrition of hospital, geriatric, pediatric patients, etc.
Also not to be neglected is the characteristic EXALTATION of the organoleptic and gustatory properties, which increases palatability and pleasantness.
Cooking food also has an inactivating effect on the enzymes characteristic of food, BLOCKING INTRINSIC DEGRADATION reactions and prolonging shelf life independently of the microbial load.

Cooking food: negative aspects

Alas, cooking food also has negative aspects:

As anticipated, cooking food reduces its nutritional value by DESTRUCTION of the thermolabile molecules and / or by the DISPERSION of many others (especially mineral salts and microelements in general).

NB. In some cases, heat treatment can play a role in favoring the availability of some nutrients; examples are: 1. The "inactivation of anti-nutritional components, such as the avidin present in the" egg white; 2.L "activation of antioxidant molecules (see Maillard reaction in tomato).

Last but not least, the formation of toxic and / or mutogenic DNA molecules such as: acrolein, formaldehyde, acrylamide and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; it should be specified that not all food cooking techniques involve an increase in the concentration of these toxic catabolites, but the systematic use of: grilling, grilling and frying can be highly harmful due to its carcinogenic potential .

Chemical and physical modifications obtained from cooking food

By cooking, foods undergo significant chemical-physical changes, which result in profound organoleptic and nutritional alterations..
The organoleptic alteration is mainly obtained by:

Intensification of color and browning
Enhancement of aroma
Weight reduction following dehydration
Increase or decrease in digestibility
Intensification and specificity of taste based on the cooking technique of the food.

As regards the alteration of the nutritional value, we remind you that this mainly depends on the cooking technique used, as for a greater duration and intensity of heat exposure corresponds to a greater reduction of thermolabile molecules and (potentially) also the release of toxic catabolites; similarly, cooking by convection in water and oil corresponds to a greater indiscriminate dispersion of nutrients compared to other techniques.