Denatured Protein

I

ian

New Member
My biology knowledge is sketchy, but i remember learning in school that heating protein would denature it.

Does this make the protein useless???
(or would it take an unrealistic amount of heat to do this)
Are raw foods better???
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Does this make the protein useless???
(or would it take an unrealistic amount of heat to do this)
Are raw foods better???</div>

The amount of protein is still there, sometimes lowered by a very small amount. There's no point to eat raw food unless you want to get sick.
 
It won't even matter. Your stomach is full of acid, that's going to do a number on the protein anyway.
 
Wouldnt it be fair to say, heat, would be a little different than stomach acids, which are designed to break foods down for absorption?
 
From what I'd read, protein breakdown occurs at above 110 degrees F. - so cooking it in your oatmeal would be bad, but putting in into your cooked oatmeal not so bad.

Need makes a good point I think. The proteins is probably broken down in a certain way that makes it utilizable for the body; heat probably does not. Aaron could give us the stats on that I bet.
 
Denating the protein via heat can decrease the amount of amino acids, generally in proportion to the amount of heat, and the time.  So strangely enough, cooking your beef steak in an oven at 800 for 2hours may not be that useful for the amino acids, but neither is the piece of leather you have left over.

Short cooking can help increase the availability of some protein, in others it worsens it.  Strangely people have been cooking protein for years and have survived pretty nicely on it.
Acid denaturation during digestion is one thing, the body will also perform enzymatic denaturation.  Because if the body does not denature the protein, it cannot get the aminos.

(remember quaternary and tertiary structures of proteins)
 
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