Roasting Foods : The Harmful Effects of

In the western world roasting poultry, meat and vegetables is one of the most popular ways of cooking food. The problem with this kind of cooking is that if the fat in the meat and poultry is allowed to burn it can turn into something that is carcinogenic. According to science a carcinogen is any substance that can potentially cause cancer. This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. An example of a carcinogen is tobacco smoke of inhaled asbestos. Thus eating roasted food does not help the body to heal or cure itself of diseases or to prevent diseases naturally due to lack of nutrients in the food and the free radicals that are produced in the roasted foods that harm the body.

The other bad effect of roasting food is that some water soluble vitamins such as vitamin C and B complex vitamins are lost in the roasting process. The extent of the loss is dependent on the lengths of the roasting process and the temperature. The longer  the period and/or the higher the temperature the more nutrients are lost. This is one of the reasons that this blog encourages a vegan or vegeterian lifestyle and the eating of raw vegetables where possible for the body to get maximum benefit from the we eat and for better digestion due to the fibre and digestive enzymes in raw vegetables, nuts and seeds.

Frying or Deep Frying Food : How Harmful Is It?

Chips Frying

Frying food is one of the reasons why cancer is on the rise in the developed world. Frying food alters the chemical structure of the oil in  food creating an abundance of cancer inducing free radicals. Free radicals can be countered by eating food rich in antioxidants such as fruits and vegetables but these too can be destroyed by the frying process as well. Frying food therefore negatively affects the body's ability to heal itself and prevent diseases naturally and is therefore harmful to the body.

Frying food also destroys the nutrients in the food on top of disturbing the sensitive oils contained in foods such as oily fish. Therefore while frying foods makes the food attractive by browning it and making it palatable it however makes the food harmful to our bodies by making it carcinogenic and should be avoided if we are to live a healthier life.

Even the smoke that emanates from the frying process is also bad for those cooking the food. Studies have shown that those who fry food on a frequent basis and therefore expose themselves to the smoke frequently have a higher chance of lung and throat cancer than those who do not.

Drs Agatha and Calvin Thrash gives us and insight on what happens when we fry or deep fry our foods.'Temperatures up to 600-700 degrees F. may be obtained. If fried foods become burned or scorched, temperatures up to 1000 or 1100 degrees F. may have been reached. At these temperatures ``cis'' fatty acids are converted to ``trans'' fatty acids . . . in other words, the unsaturated fats behave as if they were saturated. Thus, fried foods are more likely than un-fried foods to increase the likelihood of hardening of the arteries. When fat is reheated to frying temperatures the second time, as in a deep fryer [or a popcorn vendor], the fat is more likely to develop the cancer producing agent acrolein.' (Dr Agatha Thrash, Nutrition for Vegetarians, p. 46)

There are however some foods whose oils are least disturbed by frying them. The list is as follows:-

• butter;
• tropical fats;
• peanut oil
• sesame oil;
• canola oil; and 
• olive oil