05-01-2011, 05:50 AM
Ca Bob wrote:
Of course there are people who think that there is something special in raw food that is lost by cooking. Biochemistry doesn't really support this view...
Sure it does. Pasteurization doesn't kill harmful organisms just by waving a wand. It involves heating the milk just to the point where those organisms die, but not so much that there's much of a measurable loss in nutritional value.
Heat does affect the nutritional content. Proteins get denatured, B-vitamins are labile and some minerals may precipitate out.
But they do so in insignificant amounts in pasteurization and a lot of milk has supplements added which typically puts in a lot more nutrients than might have been lost in the processing.
If anything, we should be concerned with the fat, hormones, pesticides and heat resistant pathogens in milk rather than the potential loss of a decimal point's worth of folate from pasteurization.
And frankly, I'd rather have a half a percent less folic acid in our milk than have typhoid and diptheria plaguing American children.