Showing posts with label Scientific American. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scientific American. Show all posts

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Are raw veggies healthier than cooked ones?


Do vegetables lose their nutritional value when heated?

From Scientific American

Cooking is crucial to our diets. It helps us digest food without expending huge amounts of energy. It softens food, such as cellulose fiber and raw meat, that our small teeth, weak jaws and digestive systems aren't equipped to handle. And while we might hear from raw foodists that cooking kills vitamins and minerals in food (while also denaturing enzymes that aid digestion), it turns out raw vegetables are not always healthier.


Read more here.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Darwin's Living Legacy - Evolutionary Theory 150 Years Later



From Scientific American: Darwin’s Living Legacy - Evolutionary Theory 150 Years Later

A Victorian amateur undertook a lifetime pursuit of slow, meticulous observation and thought about the natural world, producing a theory 150 years ago that still drives the contemporary scientific agenda.
When the 26-year-old Charles Darwin sailed into the Galápagos Islands in 1835 onboard the HMS Beagle, he took little notice of a collection of birds that are now intimately associated with his name. The naturalist, in fact, misclassified as grosbeaks some of the birds that are now known as Darwin’s finches. After Darwin returned to England, ornithologist and artist John Gould began to make illustrations of a group of preserved bird specimens brought back in the Beagle’s hold, and the artist recognized them all to be different species of finches.