The reasons to avoid cooking at high temperatures for the healthiest results!

One of the most unhealthy processes in preparing food which is becoming extremely dangerous for human nutrition in the modern society and culture we live in is the high temperatures in which so much of our food is cooked. Fry at 190-230 degrees C on the stove in cooking fat or vegetable oils until they smoke.

We barbecue with gas grills and charcoal that can reach temperatures over 500 degrees C! This food exposure to high heat may be convenient and quick and fill the air with aromas we enjoy, but it comes at a significantly negative nutritional cost. Our food, yes, is cooked, but if we see it through a treatment such as the use of temperature, we will know that it has no healthy outcome with such high temperatures,

not even the nutrients contained in our food can withstand them.

Undesirable effects of high-temperature cooking. How you prepare the food you eat can be just as crucial to your health as what you eat.

Nutritional research is just beginning to respond to the consequences of our approach to high temperatures.

We learned, for example, that some of the most mutagenic agents formed in cooking are called heterocyclic amines and are commonly found in roast beef, chicken, and pork cooked at 200 degrees or higher. We even know the key ingredients needed to produce these mutagens: high heat for more than 5 minutes, free amino acids (from protein), creatine (or creatinine), and sugar. Without the high-temperature component, the formation of heterocyclic amines does not occur. Direct flame cooking produces another type of carcinogen called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which can be just as harmful as heterocyclic amines.

Researchers at Mt Sinai Medical found that foods cooked at high temperatures contain higher levels of compounds called advanced glycation end products (AGEs) that cause more tissue damage and inflammation than foods cooked at lower temperatures. AGEs irritate cells in the body, damaging tissue and increasing the risk of complications from diabetes and heart disease. These chemicals can be avoided by cooking meals at lower temperatures using the Healthy Sauté, Healthy Steaming or Healthy Stir-Fry cooking methods, as well as by cooking meats with foods containing antioxidant bioflavonoids such as garlic, onion and peppers.

Unfortunately, not all of us are vegetarians and don't eat beef, chicken or pork. We may not be ready or convinced to toe that line, but that doesn't matter because high temperatures apply to every food category, as we'll see below.

Recent research has discovered that a potentially toxic substance called acrylamide, a nerve-damaging substance in humans and a clear carcinogen in rodents can form in excess when certain foods are cooked at high temperatures.

Chips are a crucial target of research interest here, as are several other foods, including flaky breakfast cereals and roasted nuts. As with heterocyclic amines, acrylamide does not appear to form excessively in the absence of high cooking temperatures, provided that cooking at a lower temperature is not continued for an extended period of time (typically involving hours versus minutes).

However, the problems with high-temperature cooking are not limited to creating toxic substances. High-temperature cooking is also problematic regarding nutrient loss, and almost all nutrients in food are susceptible to heat damage.

Of course, whether a particular nutrient will be destroyed depends on the specific nutrient, the degree of heat, and the cooking time. But in general, most of the temperatures we cook in the oven (130-230 degrees) are at which significant nutrient loss occurs. And although very short cooking at 100 degrees in boiling water causes relatively little loss of nutrients, when boiling continues for more than a short time (a few minutes), the loss of nutrients becomes significant.

For example, up to 80% of the folic acid in carrots can be lost by cooking. Ditto for the amount of vitamin B1 in boiled soybeans. Even the high temperatures associated with commercial food canning rob foods of enormous nutrients. In canned mixed vegetables, the loss of vitamin C can reach 67%. Up to 70% of the original folic acid can be lost in canned tomato juice.

We've searched through nutritional research, and all the evidence points to the same conclusion: prolonged high-temperature cooking is not the way to go.