While I was in Berlin, a Hungarian girl said her mother called her and among the motherly worried things she asked was “Are you eating something warm every day?” I asked, “What difference does that make?” Then a middle-aged Brazilian woman piped up that it’s definitely better for you to eat something warm once a day.
Is there any truth to this theory that’s held both in Hungary and Brazil?
It’s true. Women are often happier after they’ve been able to get something warm inside them.
Perhaps a person who has been in service (like Iraq or Nam) could give you a personel answer to the value of a hot meal. Obviously you could survive, but don’t we want more than to just survive? :dubious:
Actually, my response would be “Where do cows cook their food?” Every herbivore in the world eats nothing but cold food their entire lives (I don’t include carnivores because they at least eat body-temperature (i.e. warm) food most of the time), and it doesn’t appear to be impinging upon their ability to live…
[snark] well I don’t have 4 stomachs and chew my cud, but that may make me unusual. [/snark]
-Lil
Although you’re joking, you make a point. I don’t think any non-human primates cook their food, so they’d be a better example.
I don’t think your stomach cares one way or another as long as it has something to digest and as long as the food has been cooked at one point (if needed, to kill bacteria).
I’d say that hot food has a comforting psychological element, but certainly is not necessary for your health. Heating food adds no vitamins or minerals (and in some cases may leech them out of the food.) As long as the foods you eat have all the nutrients you need, it doesn’t matter if it’s hot as lava or as cold as snow. A carrot is still a carrrot, in other words, regardless of temperature.
Aren’t raw veggies supposed to retain more of their nutrients? I’ve heard that cooking them sometimes kills off all the good stuff, so it’s better to eat them raw.
Not they aren’t still good.
Yeah, that’s what I meant about cooking sometimes leeching the vitamins out of food. With some vegetables, boiling them sucks the Vitaminy Goodness right out of them, and the longer you cook them, the worse it gets. The best way to prepare many veggies if they must be cooked is to steam them-- of course the best way being not to cook them at all.
On the other hand, cooking them does make them easier to digest. Try eating a raw potato or turnip. And historically, cooking was used to make wild or semi-domesticated grains and pulses digestable, as well as kill bacteria and parasites in meat.
But I’ve known a few vegetarians who eat pretty much nothing but salad (with “raw” tofu or soybeans for protein) without ill effect. But if you live in a cold climate, and especially if you’ve been working hard in one, a warm meal is an elixir and restorative. If you’ve ever been hiking through rain or snow, you’ll know what I mean.
Stranger
Oh, yes! One should never underestimate the comfort-value of a warm meal. When one has a cold, nothing is more soothing than a hot cup of soup or tea. Or, as you say, after being outside in the cold and damp. (How many of us have happy memories of Mom serving hot chocolate after you’ve been outside building a snowman?)
With some foods, the flavor is better when the food is hot. Smell is intristicly linked with taste, and when food is warmed, the steam releases scent particles into the air. Most people think, for example, that chocolate chip cookies taste better when right out of the oven-- the same is true with breads.
I don’t know if the lack of this pleasureful sensation would actually be harmful in any way to the human psyche, but I’m sure that it’s addition adds at least some fleeting seratonin boost.
I’m guessing that it’s much like having a loving companion in the home. One can live alone quite well, associating with friends for needed social interraction, but a happily married couple will tell you that it’s very pleasant to have a warm body in the bed beside you, and someone with whom to chat while washing dishes or watching a television show. It’s one of life’s little “extras”-- not needed for living, but something which soothes stress and gives comfort.
I knew someone who insisted that your body wouldn’t benefit from the nutrition that carrots hold unless you stir fried them. I stir fry them anyway, because it tastes better than steaming them, or eating them raw.
I think they are going by the idea that a “hot meal” is more complete, and therefore more healthy. They think if you cook a beef roast, of course you’ll add the vegetables, and mash potatoes and make gravy to go along with it. Therefore, you’ll be eating more kinds of food, instead of just raw carrots or apples. Maybe the mother is also not wanting their daughter* to lose the skill of cooking homecooked meals? A bit of vanity and practicality? I know my mom spent a goodly amount of time teaching me her recipies and how to cook in general. If you don’t keep in practice, you can lose a bit of your “knack” and have to relearn. Maybe the mothers are thinking that their daughters* will have a family one day that they’d like to cook for (at least when their possibly busy schedule permits) and want them to keep their ability sharp?
*Note: Both of these also goes for sons who have been taught to cook.
Here’s a previous discussion on whether vegetables are healthier raw or cooked: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=136573
I suspect that, as long as you’re not cooking them into mush, the real answer is “it depends”.
No need to be so cautious, surely. Do any non-human animals, of any class or order, cook their food? Are Kodiak bears grilling their salmon when we’re not looking?
But anyway, I’d also be curious to know how long humans are known to have been cooking food. Did that practice start pretty much immediately — immediately on archeological timescales of course — after we mastered fire, or is there a measurable lag between the two?
Many cultures imbue food with a property that we don’t really have a concept of. Often this is simplified in to “hotness” and “coldness.” For example, in Honduras, “hot” includes coffee, oranges and beef and “Cold” foods include coconuts, bananas, salt and seafood. The ratio of hot to cold must be carefully balanced to prevent or cure illness. In India, I was warned by one of my companions that I would surely get sick if I drank a cup of ice water with my hot tomato soup.
:smack: You know, I completely missed that line. I’m sorry, Lissa.
sven, maybe they’re like my mother-she always warns me about drinking ice water that’s too cold, saying I’ll give myself a stomachache if I gulp it down too fast?
With some foods, I guess, it’s not just taste, but texture. Think about it-chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven are warm and soft and gooey, they’re chewie and the chocolate is melted and just feels good on one’s tongue. If they’ve cooled, well, they might be chewie, but not as melty and soft.
How interesting!
Got any more info along those lines, or does anyone else?
It sounds a bit like the old traditional medicine of the “humours.” A lot of cultures have these concepts, like the Japanese and their idealology of yin and yang.
In Western medicine, it was also believed that one needed to keep the humours in balance. Everything was assigned a designation of hot, hold, wet or dry. Illness was believed to stem from an inbalance in one of these. If, in a physician’s opinion, the patient was suffering because they had too much moisture, he would assign cures of opposite humour, like spices and foods deemed “dry.”
On the other hand, apparently you can get more lycopene from cooked tomatoes than from raw.
I also seem to remember an article in Science News that more antioxidants are available in canned corn as opposed to raw corn. It’s suggested that the cooking process breaks down the cell walls more effectively than chewing/digestion alone.