Cooking, Cooking

The process encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to alter the flavor, appearance, texture, or digestibility of food. Factors affecting the final outcome include the variability of ingredients, ambient conditions, tools, and the skill of the individual doing the actual cooking.

Liquids are so important to cooking that the name of the cooking method used may be based on how the liquid is combined with the food, as in steaming, simmering, boiling, braising and blanching. Heating liquid in an open container results in rapidly increased evaporation, which concentrates the remaining flavor and ingredients - this is a critical component of both stewing and sauce making.

In Asian cooking, a similar effect is obtained from a mixture of rice or corn starch and water. These techniques rely on the properties of starches to create simpler mucilaginous saccharides during cooking, which causes the familiar thickening of sauces. This thickening will break down, however, under additional heat.

Vitamins come from a number of sources including fresh fruit and vegetables (Vitamin C), carrots, liver (Vitamin A), cereal bran, bread, liver e ( B vitamins), fish liver oil (Vitamin D) and fresh green vegetables (Vitamin K). Many minerals are also essential in small quantities including iron, calcium, magnesium and sulphur; and in very small quantities copper, zinc and selenium. Micronutrients from fruit and vegetables may be destroyed or eluted by cooking. However, research led by Dr Sue Southon of the Institute of Food Research in Norwich has found that cooking vegetables facilitates the absorption of micronutrients. Cooked food may therefore provide more health benefits than raw food. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/359175.stm Vitamins from fresh vegetables and fruit may be destroyed or eluted by cooking and the greatest benefit is derived from uncooked material. Vitamin C is especially prone to oxidation during cooking and may be completely destroyed by protracted coking. Minerals may also be eluted by extended boiling.

Cooking also increases the digestibility of some foods such as grains. Many foods are inedible raw. For example kidney beans are toxic when raw, due to the chemical phytohaemagglutinin.

Source: Wikipedia > Cooking