There are several reasons why food is cooked. Most obvious is the fact that cooking makes food hot! In cold weather, hot food is especially warming and comforting. Cooking also alters the flavour and texture of food. Heat causes chemical reactions to take place, altering the way that the food tastes and feels in our mouths. Because of these chemical reactions, cooking may also make food easier to digest. Finally, cooking can make food safer to eat by killing bacteria within it.
People cook food for many different reasons and while it is best to eat some foods raw such as fruits and vegetables, there are some advantages to cooking food. Food can be cooked for the following reasons:
- To change or improve the taste of the food e.g. flour being used to make cake. A cake tastes far more delicious than raw flour. Another example includes cooking sugar to make browning used to stew meats. The sugar is no longer sweet but its new taste is desirable when cooking beef etc.
- To change or enhance the appearance of the food e.g. using rice to make fried rice, preserving mango to make jam
- To change the texture (the way something feels) of food e.g. using cornmeal to make pastilles. Raw cornmeal is very grainy and coarse but when it is cooked with a liquid it becomes softer, smoother and more palatable.
- To make food safer to consume (eat). A good example of this can be found in our where eggs are cooked to make devilled eggs. Raw meat, fish, poultry and egg should all be cooked to make them safe to consume since they contain bacteria that can be harmful to us. For instance, eating raw eggs can cause Salmonella poisoning whose symptoms include vomiting and diarhoea, nausea and general ill health.
- To make foods more digestable e.g. tough cuts of meat, hard staples such as rice and cassava. Cooking these foods makes it easier for the body to use it and get all the nutrients from it.
- To increase the shelf life of the food e.g. making jam from guava. Adding sugar and heating the guava to make jam will make a product that has a longer shelf life than fresh guavas.
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