On Food and Cooking

makes them easier to eat in significant
quantities. And it actually improves the
availability of some nutrients. Two of the
most important are starch and the carotenoid
pigments. Starch consists of long chains of
sugar molecules crammed into masses called
granules. Our digestive enzymes can’t
penetrate past the outer layer of raw starch
granules, but cooking unpacks the starch
chains and lets our enzymes break them down.
Then there are beta-carotene, the precursor to
vitamin A, its chemical relative lycopene, an
important antioxidant, and other valuable
carotenoid pigments. Because they’re not very
soluble in water, we simply don’t extract
these chemicals very efficiently by just
chewing and swallowing. Cooking disrupts the
plant tissues more thoroughly and allows us to
extract much more of them. (Added fat also
significantly improves our absorption of fat-
soluble nutrients.)