Why do we COOK:

There are various reasons to cook food, but essentially our very existence pivots on our ability to cook. Cooking makes food more edible and, in so doing, cuts down on the time it takes to digest it. Great apes, our primate ancestors, spend 80 percent of their day chewing food. Learning to grind, purée, dry, or preserve food helped us to digest it more speedily, but it was the advent of cooking, at least one million years ago, that enabled us to spend less time chewing and digesting food and more time thinking and focusing on other pursuits. Today, we spend just five percent of our day eating. So how else do cooking food benefit us.

Cooking is Art:

Cooking is termed an “art” and is steeped in rituals and processes that chefs throughout the ages have followed blindly. Many of these “rules,” however, serve to confuse and stifle creativity. Science and logic show us that often customs are simply wrong. For example, beans do not need to be soaked for hours before cooking, meat does not need to be rested to seal in juices, and marinated meat can taste better if left for one hour, rather than five.

It makes food safe:

Cooking destroys bacteria, microbes, and many of the toxins these produces. Raw meat and fish can be rendered safe, and heat destroys many plant toxins, such as the deadly substance, phytohemagglutinin, in kidney beans.

Flavors multiply:  

Cooking makes food taste incredible. Heat browns meats, vegetables, breads, and cakes; caramelizes sugars; and releases locked in flavors from herbs and spices in a process known as the Millard reaction.

Cooking helps digestion:

Fat melts, chewy connective tissue in meat softens into nutritious gelatin, and proteins unravel, or “denature,” from their tightly coiled structure into ones that digestive enzymes can break down more easily.

Starches are softened:

When heated in water, clustered granules of hard-to-digest carbohydrates unravel and soften. This “gelatinization” of energy dense starches transforms vegetables and cereal flours, so the intestines can easily process them. 

Nutrients are released:

Without cooking foods to break down their starches, significant amounts of a food’s nourishment are locked up in “resistant” starch that cannot be digested. Heating also forces some vitamins and minerals that are confined inside cells to be liberated, increasing how much of these essential substances the body can absorb.

It helps us socialize:

 The ritual of cooking and sharing is entrenched in our psyche, bringing families and friends together. Research shows that regularly eating with others improves well-being.

It leads to more balanced eating:

According to scientific studies, people eat more mindful portions when they make their own food. "At restaurants, we can't control the portions that are served to us and more often than not, they are larger than what we might serve at home," Lydon says. "If you struggle with that desire to clean your plate, you might find that you're uncomfortably full after a meal out versus eating at home where you can serve a portion that will help you reach a comfortable level of fullness.

Cooked food tastes incredible. Cooking releases locked-in flavours and brings new textures to foods.