Page 9 - Spring2013

Letters

leading us into trouble. etables is preferable to eating them raw has probably diminished significantly.
Apparently, canning is not the only . . . an idea perhaps especially hard to On the other hand, I suspect that small
worry. All fruits and vegetables contain swallow for many raw-food enthusiasts. amounts of methanol will not harm us,
toxic methanol, and apparently just the According to the scientists on the because humans have always eaten some
process of chewing them up and digest- History Channel, cooking allowed hu- raw foods.
ing them releases it naturally. mans to evolve bigger brains and achieve I have a suggestion for those wish-
"Methanol is also formed when the great "advances" of the modern ing to avoid methanol while enjoying
fruits and vegetables are physically pre- world. Is another advantage of cooking canned fruits and vegetables. Pre-cook
pared for consumption by methods that the reduction of toxic methanol's nega- the food for a while before sealing it
include, but are not limited to, slicing, tive effects on human health? in the canning jars. How long? Long
chopping, puréeing and juicing. Pectin I often measure the validity of enough for the methanol to evaporate.
will break down to methanol when the health theories against my intuition . . . You'll have to ask the scientists on the
plant cell walls and middle lamellae are not very scientific, but my intuition is the History Channel how long that might be
disrupted, as can happen through physi- product of billions of years of evolution, . . . I have no idea.
cal processes of food preparation. as opposed to the scientists' accumulated Roger Windsor
"Methanol is also produced when knowledge which is a mere twenty-five A Farm in Tennessee
pectin is broken down by microorgan- hundred years or so old. In the case
isms in the digestive tract, after fruits or of the cooking-methanol question, in It is typically the high-pectin fruits such
vegetables are eaten. It has been report- general I find that I "naturally" prefer as apples, that are cooked in traditional
ed that apples contain approximately 1 eating cooked fruits and vegetables to cultures.
percent pectin, and that consumption of raw almost all the time―and amazingly
one kilogram of apples typically results scurvy has yet to strike me down. That MRSA IN MILK?
in release of 0.5 grams of methanol in preference for cooked goes for nuts and A recent press release here in the
the human body. Because the pectin seeds as well. U.K. has advised consumers against
methylesters in fruits and vegetables I guess it's time to write that best- drinking raw milk due to MRSA
will break down to produce methanol selling book: The Methanol-Free Diet (antibiotic-resistant staph) being found
either during food preparation or during ― How To Avoid Multiple Sclerosis, in five bulk tanks (www.independent.
subsequent digestion, the “total amount Cancer and Other Modern Disease by co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/
of methanol released from consump- Cooking 99% of Your Food! health-news/new-mrsa-superbug-strain-
tion of chopped or otherwise physically But actually, this emphasis on found-in-uk-milk-supply-8431187.html).
prepared fruits and vegetables is not cooked food was championed many This press release coincides with an im-
expected to be higher than the level years ago . . . by macrobiotics, a diet minent review of raw milk regulations
that results from consumption of the popularized in the 1960s that recom- by the Food Safety Authority (FSA).
equivalent amount of unprepared fruits mends almost no raw food. Too bad the The writer fails to make a distinction
or vegetables” (Proposition 65 Interpre- macros almost entirely avoid almost between raw milk which the FSA has
tive Guideline, 3 March 2012). all animal foods, ruining an otherwise certified for human consumption versus
Now, this last bit is very interest- excellent traditional diet. lower grade commodity milk that must
ing. Since chewing must be considered Unlike humans, animals don't cook, be pasteurized.
a form of "food preparation" similar to so obviously their bodies have evolved to Indeed, commodity milk pro-
"slicing, chopping, pureeing or juicing", neutralize the toxic effects of methanol. duced without a raw milk license is
this article suggests that if one wishes But cooking has been well established in frequently contaminated with a whole
to minimize harmful methanol entering human culture for tens of thousands of host of pathogens, principally because
the body, eating cooked fruits and veg- years, so our ability to tolerate methanol the farmers are satisfied that the milk
Wise Traditions SPRING 2013 SPRING 2013 Wise Traditions 9