Pasteurization and Malnutrition
The government has gone on a spree lately of declaring that all kinds of foods (almonds, spinach, sunflower seeds, etc.) need to be treated somehow before they're consumed. They believe that, because e. coli has been found on some almonds somewhere that magically, all almonds have acquired the ability to spout e. coli bacteria.The problem is that their solution - pasteurization, which is essentially a very brief but very high-heat cooking process - has profound effects on the food being "made safe". Take a look at this:
There are seven things you get from eating food:
Minerals: These are unaffected by heat. The FDA still doesn't really know which of them are vital, but as we learn more about the human body, we're figuring it out.
Complementary Nutriments: This is probably the leat understood group and includes probiotics, enzymes, co-factors, antioxidants, etc. This group of things tends to be highly heat sensitive.
Fats: The delicate omegas that are required by your body are heat sensitive, though the presence of saturated fats and antioxidants can help preserve them through the cooking process.
Vitamins: The fat soluble vitamins hold up better after being cooked than the water-soluble ones, which are frequently re-added to food because they've been stripped out.
Water: It gets hot when food is cooked, and tends to evaporate.
Proteins: These are indeed denatured through both acidic action and heat action, but the processes are not the same. Your body more effectively utilizes meat protein that's not cooked to death. Some plant proteins require fermentation and heat to be better absorbed.
Carbohydrates: These nonessential nutrients aren't too affected by heat.
The problem with saying that a sunflower seed is the same before and after it's cooked is that we actually haven't looked at everything before and after. I don't think we actually have the ability to reduce a sunflower seed to all its components. You can analyze it for something - you can check the levels of Vitamin A before and after. But there's no comprehensive list of ingredients on a sunflower seed, and there certainly isn't a list of ingredients that shows how things work together. Is the cobalt present part of a B12 molecule, or is it just chillin'?
The government, when testing food, only looks for certain criteria - things they believe are vital (They're usually the vitamins because they're looking to prevent known deficiencies like beri beri and pellagra - which is why things like flour and rice are enriched - or macrominerals like calcium). They don't look for things like enzymes, all the minerals, or even all amino acids.
Essentially, by pre-processing our food, the government is adding to the malnutrition epidemic that is already making Americans unhappy, slothful, and unfocused. Proper nutrition is so simple to learn, and yet no one seems to know how much it can really help you. If you want to improve your health, your attitude, and your waistline, read this.