Lesson 1: Module 6 Student Summary

Goal: How can I include warm foods into my diet if I choose to be more careful with cooked foods due to the carcinogenic compounds produced by prolonger high temperature cooking. I live in a cold climate and don’t want to always eat cold foods, can I still get the maximum nutrition if I slowly cook food at low temperatures such as below 48 degrees as suggested by proponents of the raw food diet. How can I still enjoy textures I once enjoyed on a standard diet such as breads, crackers and crisps but indulge in these foods in a health way.

Pursuit: To achieve amazing textures that you may have been use to but also stay super healthy , you can use food dehydration as a molecular gastronomy technique to turn super medicinal ingredients into breads, crisps, crackers and cookies. This process will air dry food removing moisture and preserving the food at a temperature below 48 degrees, mostly we use 41 degrees. Another molecular gastronomy technique you can use here is a slow cooker which allows you to make beautiful and super healthy nutritious, micronutrient & phytonutrient active, enzyme rich soups, stocks and porridges. As you can not set the temperature on a slow cooker you will need to get familiar with it and use settings such as low, high and warm intermittently depending on recipe. with slow cooking, The slower the better, over longer periods and most often the lowest possible temperature. For more precision you can use a water bath sous vide machine where you can set the temperatures.

Evaluation: A good feedback tool here is your stool, dehdrated foods are what they suggest, they are dehydrated and the water and moisture has been removed therefore they can be dehydrating to the body, the positive is that they provide great fibre and with great fibre inttake you need to include a much higher intake of water or liquids such as kefir, tea and kombucha. If you become constipated it might be from too much dehydrated foods and not enough liquids. An important note is that although it can be wonderful to include textures such as bread and crackers especially when still extremely health and raw, we still should only include a very small amount in our diet. For optimum health we need optimum hydration and therefore more water rich foods like greens and fruits. Dehydrated foods are the opposite to this and although much healthier that standard commercially processed carbs, we should still limit intake. In cold climates or cold seasons we can certainly enjoy warm slow cooked soups and porridges which are very moist and super nutritious and full of flavour.if you feel really cold during these times and struggle to raise basal temperature, this may be a sign from you body to include warm foods.

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