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Cooking makes protein more digestible
Unfolding is not damage
Proteins fold into three-dimensional structures determined by their amino acid sequence. Heat or acid starts to unfold that structure, which happens during digestion anyway, so unfolding by cooking isn't damage. People hear denature and think destroy, but it means unfolding.
Raw food claims
Raw food claims are mostly Instagram appeal. Cooking typically makes amino acids more bioavailable rather than less, and companies marketing a way to cook without destroying amino acids are describing ordinary cooking.
Charring
Charring is a separate matter. Charring meat creates polyaromatic hydrocarbons, which appear to be carcinogenic when given to animals.
How much does cooking improve egg protein digestion?
In a 1998 study in the Journal of Nutrition, Bart Evenepoel and colleagues in Belgium fed volunteers eggs labeled with a nitrogen isotope. About 91 percent of the protein from cooked egg was digested and absorbed, against about 51 percent from raw egg. Heating loosens the folded protein, so digestive enzymes can reach it. Raw egg white also contains avidin, which binds the vitamin biotin.
How does the stomach unfold proteins itself?
Stomach acid has a pH of around 1.5 to 2. That level of acidity unfolds proteins and exposes their internal bonds to pepsin, the stomach's protein-cutting enzyme. Pepsin itself works best in acid. Protein digestion then continues in the small intestine with enzymes from the pancreas.
How does charring create carcinogens?
When fat from meat drips onto flame or hot coals, it produces smoke containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which settle on the surface of the food. Cooking meat at high temperatures also produces heterocyclic amines from reactions between amino acids, sugars, and creatine. Both groups cause tumors in animal tests at high doses. The International Agency for Research on Cancer lists several of them as probable or possible human carcinogens.
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