Cooking vegetables 'improves benefits'

Cooking vegetables 'improves benefits' -- nonsensical propaganda from the BBC.

BBC> Vegetables can offer better heath benefits when they are cooked and mashed, helping to lay rest to a popular misconception, scientists have said.  Although many people think raw vegetables offer the best protection against heart disease and cancer, this simply is not true, they said.
      Now a Europe-wide study has shown that the body can absorb more of an important substance from cooked vegetables than from raw ones.  The research suggests that cooking can improve the performance of carrots, broccoli and spinach when it comes to protecting health.
     Note, "important substance": as in one small group!  So, lets simply ignore the other unknown dozens, or hundreds, of equally-important nutrient to support this propaganda.  Note: suggests.

BBC> However, nutrition specialists say there is no point in people focussing on how to eat vegetables until they are eating enough of them in the first place.
     Nutritionists; the same people who have been propagating false information about human diet for decades, such as the Big Four Food Groups, including meats and dairy, while animal protein and animal fats are now known to produce the currently-popular "degenerative diseases", and the nonsensical "% calories as xxx" hoax.

BBC> Cancer prevention
The active ingredients studied in this research were carotenoids. They are one of a group of chemicals known as antioxidants that are thought to protect against cancer.
Dr Sue Southon, from the Institute of Food Research in Norwich, led the research, which is reported in New Scientist magazine.
     Apparently, the Institute also supports Genetically Modified foods.
     "GM food is of importance to consumers, regulators and industry. Scientific underpinning of regulation is a vital activity that is well represented in the research programme."

     The Union of Concerned Scientists, however suggest caution: "We believe that the federal government must strengthen the regulatory system governing genetically engineered microorganisms, plants, and animals, so that the risks and benefits can be evaluated carefully, case by case, before they come to market."  Yet unknown amounts of GM foods are currently being perpetrated on the unsuspecting public, without our knowledge (no labeling laws), consent, or minimal understanding of the effects of this technology.  The same "rush to market" (free market?) approach to industrial profit was used with pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, food additives, junk and fast foods ... and all uniformly led to huge industrial profits and environmental and personal health disasters.

BBC> She said that while the gut could absorb between three and four per cent of the carotenoids in raw carrots, that could increase by up to five times if the carrots were cooked and mashed.
     But, she forgot to mention the inherent down side of cooking: production of carcinogens, hundreds of unknown, untested Maillard reaction products, the denaturing of proteins, the allowing and encouragement of the eating of false "foods" that one would never think of eating raw: meats, beans, grains, ...

BBC> "One of the problems with getting carotenoids into your body is the structure of the food, particularly the tough-walled cells like those in carrots. Cooking helps to release them," Dr Southon told the magazine.
     But, she neglected mention of the down side of cooking.

BBC> The team also found that it was easier for the body to absorb vitamins from vegetables than from supplements.
     No surprise, given the nutritional co-factors in natural foods.

BBC> The scientists - from the UK, the Netherlands Spain, Ireland and France - conducted their study using an artificial gut.
     Thus invalidating any possible relationship to human nutrition.  Clearly, this is a fatal experimental flaw.

BBC> The researchers hope in future to work out precise amounts of carotenoids absorbed from food prepared in different ways so they get set recommended daily amounts
     RDA's for an "artificial gut"?  Hmmm.  Is this not rather obviously junk science?  Do artificial guts have artificial RDA's or, quite mysteriously, human RA's?

BBC> But Sarah Schenker, a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, said people did not yet eat the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day, and so there was little point getting too concerned about how food was prepared.
     People selfishly interested in their own health, as opposed to research hacks supporting industrial profiteering, are concerned about the quality of their foods.

She told BBC News Online: "It's a common misconception that raw vegetables are better for you, and perhaps this study will help rectify that, ...
     This study suggests that cooked vegetables may be better for the test population, i. e. artificial guts, but it is totally unrelated to human nutrition.