During the week someone sent me a very interesting article from the Australian Financial Review (Jan 23-26,2009). The author Sue Williams was interviewing scientists about what they are finding out about food. One of them was the CSIRO's Ingrid Appelqvist. She was saying that although carrots eaten raw provide fibre, the body does not have the enzymes to break down the carrots cellular structure in order to release the nutrients. "What goes in and comes out is much the same". Instead we should slightly cook them and then puree them to extract the most nutrients.
The same goes with a tomato. Appelqvist says "...there's much more chance of increasing the bio-availability of lycopene from a grilled tomato as from a raw one. If you add a little olive oil, because its fat soluble it even enhances that in a way". This augers well for tomato sauces and soups in being beneficial in the possible prevention of prostate cancer. Cooked peanuts were also rated better than raw - I suppose thats part of why a lot of Asian food is considered quite healthy.
So next time you eat that healthy raw carrot, consider that you are not getting the best from it.
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