What’s up fellow T members?
I had someone tell me last night that chicken is unhealthy because if it’s cooked to the point where its healthy to eat it looses its nutritional value due to the high temp at which its cooked…
I have been researching it all day trying to find something about this because I believe 100% its false information that they are regurgitating out of there face. Has anyone ever read or heard anything similar to this??
Thanks and sorry for the stupid question.
Definitely false, meat is always more nutritional when cooked. Makes the proteins more bio-available to the body.
I can not think of any nutrients that chicken has that are destroyed by heat (I assume there are some, but of small significance).
The only reason why chicken could be considered unhealthy is Advanced Glycemic End-product (AGE) production and Heterocyclic Amine production; but these can be avoided by not cooking the chicken at a temperature that rivals hell itself, and just used moderate heat.
Also, marinated with garlic/vinegar mixture apparently reduced subsequent HCA production significantly (Not sure the active ingredient that does this though), so something to look out for if carcinogens worry you.
Thanks for the replies guys. Pretty much what I was expecting to hear…I had researched for evidence on the topic for a few hours with nothing turning up so I figured you guys would have the knowledge to support or debunk this myth.
Thanks again.
[quote]K-Man32 wrote:
Definitely false, meat is always more nutritional when cooked. Makes the proteins more bio-available to the body.[/quote]
That’s not true though.
The problem with raw chicken is salmonella (sp?). All meat is great when, and meant to be eaten raw, or as close to raw as you feel is safe based on the quality of meat you buy and whence it came.
You can look at study after study that shows how quickly and efficiently we digest raw/near raw meat versus the same meat cooked. The difference between your rare hamburger, and the black-patty you get at McDonalds isn’t just the meat quality, but that meat from McDonalds will sit in your gut may longer.
So in principle, it would be nice to be able to find some chicken you could munch on raw, without the risk of it being diseased. In reality, it’s probably not worth the risk, unless you’ve known the chicken since it was an egg, and no it hasn’t been exposed to anything. Protein isn’t really effected by heat, but other nutrients that might be present are.
Bring in Bill.
Also, it doesn’t really matter what happens to chicken when it’s cooked, because that’s the only way your going to be able to eat it.
I saw a video once of an asian bodybuilder who would blend a couple of raw chicken breasts and drink it becuase of basically what you are saying. I dunno if it’s true, but I bet he died from salmonella…i wouldnt do it
[quote]Spartiates wrote:
You can look at study after study that shows how quickly and efficiently we digest raw/near raw meat versus the same meat cooked. The difference between your rare hamburger, and the black-patty you get at McDonalds isn’t just the meat quality, but that meat from McDonalds will sit in your gut may longer.[/quote]
Do you have any of these studies on hand and can you give a little more detail as to how the denaturing of proteins via cooking makes them sit in the gut longer than consuming them intact?
Since denaturing proteins is a step of the digestive process, I can’t see how doing it on the stove rather than your stomach/intestines makes it so inferior.
[quote]Spartiates wrote:
Protein isn’t really effected by heat[/quote]
Other than the fact that enough heat to denature the protein makes the quality inferior to consuming it in its original state?
What was that article on here that was explaining that cooked meat IS more bio-available to us, and that a process of our evolution may have been the use of fire to cook food?
Happy to see that you guys are giving some actual evidence (I hope) of it is.
[quote]Spartiates wrote:
[quote]K-Man32 wrote:
Definitely false, meat is always more nutritional when cooked. Makes the proteins more bio-available to the body.[/quote]
That’s not true though.
The problem with raw chicken is salmonella (sp?). All meat is great when, and meant to be eaten raw, or as close to raw as you feel is safe based on the quality of meat you buy and whence it came.
You can look at study after study that shows how quickly and efficiently we digest raw/near raw meat versus the same meat cooked. The difference between your rare hamburger, and the black-patty you get at McDonalds isn’t just the meat quality, but that meat from McDonalds will sit in your gut may longer.
So in principle, it would be nice to be able to find some chicken you could munch on raw, without the risk of it being diseased. In reality, it’s probably not worth the risk, unless you’ve known the chicken since it was an egg, and no it hasn’t been exposed to anything. Protein isn’t really effected by heat, but other nutrients that might be present are.[/quote]
Interesting, i have never seen any study showing that. In fact, i am assuming that the opposite is the case. Do you have any of the studies on hand?
tell the person who told you this to try it for a month, see what they say then.
unless they’re a vegetarian /vegan, in which case punch them in the mouth
[quote]Spartiates wrote:
[quote]K-Man32 wrote:
Definitely false, meat is always more nutritional when cooked. Makes the proteins more bio-available to the body.[/quote]
That’s not true though.
The problem with raw chicken is salmonella (sp?). All meat is great when, and meant to be eaten raw, or as close to raw as you feel is safe based on the quality of meat you buy and whence it came.
You can look at study after study that shows how quickly and efficiently we digest raw/near raw meat versus the same meat cooked. The difference between your rare hamburger, and the black-patty you get at McDonalds isn’t just the meat quality, but that meat from McDonalds will sit in your gut may longer.
So in principle, it would be nice to be able to find some chicken you could munch on raw, without the risk of it being diseased. In reality, it’s probably not worth the risk, unless you’ve known the chicken since it was an egg, and no it hasn’t been exposed to anything. Protein isn’t really effected by heat, but other nutrients that might be present are.[/quote]
“nutrient loss” means nothing, there are few “nutrients” that are destroyed by cooking in the tissue.
Availability of the protein skyrockets with cooking.
And the energy needed to digest it plummets.
Think about how much heat energy is used to cook that chicken, if not cooked your body would have to denature and unfold that protein in some other method, namely acid.
Could you eat raw chicken ? Sure.
Would you get as much protein or calories from it ? No.
I’m not sure if it looses any of its nutritional value but I’m sure the protein will be denatured from it original form, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad for you or anything, Now something like Olive Oil has a low smoke point and when its used for cooking it looses all of its good properties, I wouldn’t say the same for chicken but I would like to hear what someone like bill has to say about this
Want to hear something pretty funny on this topic. I happened to see two different educational shows in the same week a few months back. The first show was all about obesity. The end conclusion was that one of the main reasons for western societies poor health is that we cook our food and lose out on important nutrients. It wasn’t just veggies. They mentioned and focused on meat too.
A day or two later I caught another show on the evolution of man. This show pointed out that the discovery of fire and our ability to cook meat sped up our evolution. We were able to develop bigger brains due to all the extra nutrients we got out of cooking our meat. I must say it was pretty friggin funny.
Long story short… people are full of shit.
Despite this being absolutely ridiculous I have to ask a few questions: Who told you such filth? Where did they get this misinformation? Also, why didn’t you just point out the numerous examples throughout history of chicken being good for you and the massive amount of elite athletes who have chicken as a staple in their diets. That shit’s not an accident. And then why didn’t you smack this person for being a dumb ass?
[quote]polo77j wrote:
Despite this being absolutely ridiculous I have to ask a few questions: Who told you such filth? Where did they get this misinformation? Also, why didn’t you just point out the numerous examples throughout history of chicken being good for you and the massive amount of elite athletes who have chicken as a staple in their diets. That shit’s not an accident. And then why didn’t you smack this person for being a dumb ass?[/quote]
1st let me say that I 100% completely agree with your frustration about the topic…when I heard this come out of this persons mouth I was flabbergasted. This persons mom is a tree hugging hippie that only eats like a rabbit, and has a ton of ideologies on nutrition…when I heard this “Chicken” myth I did ask a few questions:
1- Where did you hear this shit? Answer- “My Mom”
2- Is your Mom a Nutritionist or a Doctor? Answer- “No but she might as well be a nutritionist she reads a lot about this stuff”
3- If your Mom is right, then 95% of professional athletes and there trainers, coaches, and dietitians have been doing it wrong for the last decade, right? Answer “Well she’s right about everything else on nutrition so I just listen to her, and I’m sure she’s right.”
So that’s how the conversation went, after that I bit my tongue and just waited to get home to do research, I was hoping to find a piece of literature that 100% states that this is a false accusation…Im 6’2" 240lbs at about 17% I eat a shit ton of chicken…apparently Im doing it all wrong …haha
I’ll throw in some reading for those of you who want to kill some time (1 on food heating, 2 on food processing)
http://www.paho.org/English/CFNI/cfni-caj37No304-art-3.pdf
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ed061p364?cookieSet=1
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119916522/PDFSTART
Tl;dr
Vitamin A,C,E, and a few of the B’s (Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin) can be destroyed by heat. The measures that I saw were all around 120C (low end) to 250C (high end) for nutrient destruction, and it was not complete destruction, but a reduction of content of said nutrient (amounts vary).
B vitamins seem to be destroyed under alkaline conditions, but who the hell cooks chicken under alkaline conditions? Vitamins A,C,E are not significant in chicken, and B vitamins are also plentiful in most foods as well as meat.
So cooking nutrient loss is a moot point, if anyone draws the ‘enzyme destruction’ card, slap them in the face and scream Hydrochloric acid at them.
[quote]thaiclinch wrote:
[quote]polo77j wrote:
Despite this being absolutely ridiculous I have to ask a few questions: Who told you such filth? Where did they get this misinformation? Also, why didn’t you just point out the numerous examples throughout history of chicken being good for you and the massive amount of elite athletes who have chicken as a staple in their diets. That shit’s not an accident. And then why didn’t you smack this person for being a dumb ass?[/quote]
1st let me say that I 100% completely agree with your frustration about the topic…when I heard this come out of this persons mouth I was flabbergasted. This persons mom is a tree hugging hippie that only eats like a rabbit, and has a ton of ideologies on nutrition…when I heard this “Chicken” myth I did ask a few questions:
1- Where did you hear this shit? Answer- “My Mom”
2- Is your Mom a Nutritionist or a Doctor? Answer- “No but she might as well be a nutritionist she reads a lot about this stuff”
3- If your Mom is right, then 95% of professional athletes and there trainers, coaches, and dietitians have been doing it wrong for the last decade, right? Answer “Well she’s right about everything else on nutrition so I just listen to her, and I’m sure she’s right.”
So that’s how the conversation went, after that I bit my tongue and just waited to get home to do research, I was hoping to find a piece of literature that 100% states that this is a false accusation…Im 6’2" 240lbs at about 17% I eat a shit ton of chicken…apparently Im doing it all wrong …haha[/quote]
Ok … well my next question would be … is your mom hot?
I was actually thinking about it while I was eating my lunch (chicken) and, I forget the exact post, but yes, cooked chicken does lose some nutritional value … cooking anything creates a loss of n.v., it’s a physical change due to exposure of heat. Doesn’t mean it’s not effective with out given goals 
The answers you are looking for about nutritional value are found in this PDF:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=9448
Folate and B12 are the hardest hit at 60 and 65%, other than that retention of nutrients is pretty good. If you eat well, you should be well exceeding the required intake in these nutrients in your diet, so that this loss is not an issue.
The increased protein digestibility, hygiene, and tastiness are certainly hard to argue with, but then again, some people are breathatarians.