One of the modern food fads that is occasionally advocated is the eating of all foods in a raw condition. The arguments in favor of this practice appear to be based wholly on a real or fancied personal experience; indeed, this must be so, because there are no well-established scientific facts that in fairness can be used to support the claim that foods in a raw state are, in general, more healthful or more efficient than when cooked.

If cooked foods are inferior to raw in healthfulness or efficiency, the explanation must lie largely in one or more of the following factors:

1 Poorer mastication of the cooked food.

2 A lower ratio of digestibility.

3 A less nutritive efficiency or different function of the food compounds in a cooked state.

244. Mastication

It is undoubtedly true that much more time would be consumed in masticating raw cereals and vegetables than is required after these foods are cooked. This would result in a more complete admixture of the saliva with the masticated food. It is probable, however, that the uncooked cereal, being much harder and more tenacious than the cooked, would not be reduced to as fine a mechanical condition as after being disintegrated by either wet or dry heat.

245. Digestibility

In any case, there is every reason for asserting that cooking vegetable foods makes possible a prompter and more complete digestion because of a rupture of the cells containing the effective nutrients, which is certainly a desirable result. The less complete the digestion, the larger the fecal residue, and, for this reason, uncooked foods may possibly have some advantage for persons to whom constipation is a constant menace, although the use of coarse bread containing wheat or bran, or a free use of fruit and vegetables, is probably as efficient a bowel regulator as any uncooked materials could possibly be.

246. Influence Of Cooking On Function

No advantage can be claimed for uncooked foods because of any difference in function, or greater efficiency, of raw proteins or carbohydrates over those that have been submitted to heat, excepting that cooked animal proteins like those in meat and eggs more slowly digest after coagulation, but do not seem to be less completely digested. Function is not changed by cooking. Raw proteins and raw starch when digested will do no more work, or no different work, in the animal organism than coagulated protein or hydro-lyzed starch. A real disadvantage attending the consumption of raw foods, fruits excepted, is the absence of the flavors that are developed by cooking. These flavors are a real nutritive asset as excitants of the secretion of the digestive fluids. On the whole, the proposition to eat all foods raw is not only irrational, but even absurd, when regarded in the light of well-established facts.