Alternative to 100% Wai

[RRM]

The most harmful effects take place due to cooking at high temps (> 100 degrees Celsius),
so that slow cooking may be a very acceptable alternative for the masses.
A friend from Morocco recently introduced me to the 'magin' (pronounce: "madjin"),
which is a traditional slow cooker made from clay / stone.
I use it to cook food for my girlfriend.
The temperature stays between 70 and 90 degrees Celsius, much like in modern electric slow cookers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_cooking
The magin costs only 12 euro in moroccon food stores here.

Maybe we could create a slow cooking page / site / forum (slowcooking4health)
based on waisays info?
What do you think?

[dime]

Sounds like a great idea.

Can you give more details about the 'magin', like an online link? I make rice from time to time, but I don't want to buy the typical rice cooker, they are all made from some bad non-sticky metals. Clay/stone sounds much better.

Edit: found it, it's actually called tagin (tajine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajine

Maybe something like this http://vitaclaychef.com/ but seems a bit more expensive than 10 eur :)

[mario91]

I was seeing some gourmet hotel cooking show a few weeks ago, and they were cooking a chicken in one of those ultra-modern huge cooking machines, at only 60ºC... It made me curious. How healthy do you guys think it would be? (Considering that it's even lower that the 70ºC of the magin, and it's pretty much a dehydrator temperature).

[mario91]

About the tajine, in my opinion, I agree that it's a much healthier way of cooking.
But people would still consume the anti-nutrients and toxins on vegetables and grains (and the pesticides and fertilizer residues, since you can't peel them, unlike fruits), the hormones and antibiotic residues of "industrial" meat/eggs/milk/diary and farmed fish, the unnecessary chemical additives (and "addictives"!) added in packed foods (because I bet people wouldn't stop consuming these), and the mind-altering substances present in all these.
So, I guess it wouldn't make such an impact on people's overall health... In my opinion you could make a reference in the free acne book, or just here in the board, like you've already made, but personally I wouldn't bother to create a whole new website about it.

[RRM]

it's actually called tagin

Yes, thank you Dime.

I was seeing some gourmet hotel cooking show a few weeks ago, and they were cooking a chicken in one of those ultra-modern huge cooking machines, at only 60ºC... It made me curious. How healthy do you guys think it would be? (Considering that it's even lower that the 70ºC of the magin, and it's pretty much a dehydrator temperature).

I think its very healthy, because of exactly that, but not using grains etc, indeed.
Just animal foods.
Low quality beef (with lots of connective tissue) tastes perfectly great after slow cooking.

[Mr. PC]

I've been abstaining from store-bought beef, because I was told it's likely irradiated.

Is the damage of irradiation more sever than that of a slow cooker?

Is irradiation something I might not even have to worry about in this case?

Rice is generally cooked more slowly; I simply boil the water, than turn the heat to the lowest setting while putting the rice in. Maybe it's better to just not let the water boil.

I think it might be a good idea to have a less extreme forum, for people who don't have whatever it takes to go pure Wai (like my mom and sister). It's simply a matter of how much time you're willing to spend personally.

On the other hand, if you were to market it for acne, I think the idea of a strict diet to prove it works first is important; a person's drive to try something new will go out the window after seeing it not work once; although maybe I'm wrong about that - I'm really just projecting my own habits here.

[RRM]

Is the damage of irradiation more sever than that of a slow cooker?

Yes. Slow cooking is more about denaturation (splitting of molecules) than the formation of new compounds (combining of molecules)

Is irradiation something I might not even have to worry about in this case?

That depends on whether the beef is irradiated.

Rice is generally cooked more slowly; I simply boil the water, than turn the heat to the lowest setting while putting the rice in. Maybe it's better to just not let the water boil.

Slow cooking is ok for animal food (particularly connective tissue); but not for grains and veggies,
as the latter require cooking to sufficiently destroy antinutrients.
Particularly 'very low quality' beef is perfect for slow cooking, as it contains a lot of connective tissue,
which makes the end product very tasty (much more so than high quality beef).
So, slow cooking may save you money.

On the other hand, if you were to market it for acne, I think the idea of a strict diet to prove it works first is important; a person's drive to try something new will go out the window after seeing it not work once; although maybe I'm wrong about that -

Yeah. Thats exactly why we made the acne sample diet so strict.

[Kasper]

I've been using the slow cooking concept for beef and lamb.
Loving it !

[RRM]

Try the 'worst' pieces of meat that you can get; the ones with lots of connective tissue,
because these taste the best when 'slow cooked'.

[Mr. PC]

My family wants to know whether their method of cooking meatballs for spagetti, slowly over a period of hours, is 'good enough'; as in, not significantly harmful.

I imagine you're going to ask me how high the temperature of it is; I'm not sure but is there a limit? like 75 Celsius?

Also, is denaturisation not harmful? I stopped putting lemon juice on my fish because I didn't want to denature it.

[RRM]

My family wants to know whether their method of cooking meatballs for spagetti, slowly over a period of hours, is 'good enough'; as in, not significantly harmful.

I imagine you're going to ask me how high the temperature of it is; I'm not sure but is there a limit? like 75 Celsius?

Its all about the temperature, indeed.
80 degrees Celsius is a good upper limit, making a lot of difference, indeed.
Also, those meatballs will be much 'juicier' / better tasting.

Also, is denaturisation not harmful? I stopped putting lemon juice on my fish because I didn't want to denature it.

Its not harmful regarding the formation of oxysterols, heterocyclic amines etc.
But some nutrients (vitamins) may render worthless due to denaturation.

[Kasper]

What about the oxidization of cysteine? At which temperature does this happen ?

I was thinking that the protein quality could become lower when slow cooking, but I'm not sure.

By the way, tried lamb sausages today.They are already could digestable of course, but they taste much better when slow-cooked (warmed up).

[dime]

From a quick search: 50% cystine is lost if heated at 115C for 27 hours. I guess it's a lot less at 70-80C.
If you eat raw egg yolks (which you should :-)) I don't think there's anything to worry about such loss of cystine.

[Kasper]

Do you mean cystine or cysteine ?

Because cystine is oxidyzed cysteine according to wikipedia:
"Cystine is a dimeric amino acid formed by the oxidation of two cysteine residues that covalently link to make a disulfide bond."

The effect of heat treatments, at various water activities (αw), on digestibility and on the availabilities of amino acids of whey protein samples in the presence of lactose was estimated by an in vitro digestion method with continuons dialysis. Four αw (0·3, 0·5, 0·7 and 0·97), three temperatures (75, 100 and 121 °C) and three heating periods (50, 500 and 5000 s) were selected. The initial lysine: lactose molar ratio was 1:1. Amino acid profiles showed that excessive heating of whey (121 °C, 5000 s) destroyed a significant proportion of cystine at all αw, lysine at αw 0·3, 0·5 and 0·7, and arginine at αw 0·5 and 0·7. At αw 0·3, 0·5 and 0·7, protein digestibility decreased (P < 0·05) as the temperature increased from 75 to 121 °C for a heating period of 5000 s, and as the heating time was prolonged from 500 to 5000 s at 121 °C. Excessive heating also decreased (P < 0·05) the availabilities of ail amino acids at αw 0·3, 0·5 and 0·7. The availabilities of lysine, proline, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, threonine, alanine, glycine and serine were particularly affected. Severe heating at αw 0·97 did not seem to favour the Maillard reaction, but the availabilities of cystine, tyrosine and arginine were decreased, probably as a result of structural modifications of the protein upon heating. Heating whey protein concentrates in the presence of lactose not only affected lysine, but also impaired enzymic liberation of other amino acids, according to the severity of heat treatments and αw.

Hm... I have to pay for this article ..

The free cysteine residues in the extremely thermophilic Thermoanaerobacter brockii alcohol dehydrogenase (TBADH) were characterized using selective chemical modification with the stable nitroxyl biradical bis(1-oxy-2,2,5,5-tetramethyl-3-imidazoline-4-yl)disulfide, via a thiol-disulfide exchange reaction and with 2[14C]iodoacetic acid, via S-alkylation. The respective reactions were monitored by electron paramagenetic resonance (EPR) and by the incorporation of the radioactive label. In native TBADH, the rapid modification of one cysteine residue per subunit by the biradical and the concomitant loss of catalytic activity was reversed by DTT. NADP protected the enzyme from both modification and inactivation by the biradical. RPLC fingerprint analysis of reduced and S-carboxymethylated lysyl peptides from the radioactive alkylated enzyme identified Cys 203 as the readily modified residue. A second cysteine residue was rapidly modified with both modification reagents when the catalytic zinc was removed from the enzyme by o-phenanthroline. This cysteine residue, which could serve as a putative ligand to the active-site zinc atom, was identified as Cys 37 in RPLC. The EPR data suggested a distance of < or 10 A between Cys 37 and Cys 203. Although Cys 283 and Cys 295 were buried within the protein core and were not accessible for chemical modification, the two residues were oxidized to cystine when TBADH was heated at 75 degrees C, forming a disulfide bridge that was not present in the native enzyme, without affecting either enzymatic activity or thermal stability. The status of these cysteine residues was verified by site directed mutagenesis.

[RRM]

Do you mean cystine or cysteine ?
Because cystine is oxidyzed cysteine according to wikipedia:

They are both non-essential amino acids, but confusingly, both names are used for the same molecules,
because cystine is readily reduced to (2 molecules of) cysteine upon cell entry.
In general (Souci, USDA), cystine is listed,
because cysteine is catabolized in the gastrointestinal tract, whereas cystine is not.
So, you may see cystine as a cysteine transporter / container.