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Roasted Nuts & Baked Tofu?
14 Jul 2019
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How should we cook high-fat, high-protein foods like tofu, nuts and seeds? Is roasting or toasting okay? Dr Greger says No! Please see videos below:
(2021) Are Baruka Nuts the Healthiest Nut?

(5 mins) Transcript. This video is about baruka nuts but a short section is about AGEs. An excerpt:

Glycotoxins are naturally present in uncooked animal-derived foods, but then dry-heat cooking, like grilling, can make things worse. The three highest levels recorded are bacon, broiled hot dogs, and roasted barbequed chicken skin (nothing comes close to that.) Chicken McNuggets come in here, but, anyway, any foods high in fat and protein can create AGEs at high enough temperatures; so, although plant foods tend to contain relatively few AGEs, even after cooking, there are some high-fat, high-protein plant foods.

(click to enlarge pic)

For example, boiled tofu, like in a soup, is down here, but the same serving size of broiled tofu is up here. Now again, with most plant foods. it’s not at all a problem. Like here’s a raw apple, and here’s a baked apple. It doesn’t really matter, since it’s not high fat or high protein. I was surprised that veggie burgers were so low, even when baked or fried. But nuts and seeds are up in tofu territory, especially when roasted, which is why I would recommend raw nuts and seeds and nut and seed butters whenever you have a choice.

AGE(s) — Glycotoxins

Dr Greger explains that if we expose high-fat, high-protein foods to high temperatures via broiling, roasting, barbecuing and frying, we create AGEs. The top 20 foods with AGEs are all meat products (see Dr Greger's videos below). However, tofu (high-fat, high-protein) when broiled or fried also has AGES. Same applies to nuts and seeds when they are toasted, roasted, broiled or baked.

How bad are AGEs? Apparently, they are really bad. Check out AGEs: Advanced Glycation End-products.

How to Eat Tofu, Nuts & Seeds

How to eat tofu, nuts and seeds to avoid AGEs? In the video, Dr Greger mentions that he orders steamed / raw tofu in restaurants.

Moist-heat cooking: At offset 2:00 in the video, Dr Greger recommends "moist-heat cooking" below 200F for tofu, nuts and seeds. What is moist-heat cooking? This article explains: “Moist heat cooking includes poaching, simmering, boiling, braising, stewing, pot roasting, steaming and en papillote.” I don't understand all these ways of cooking but I know that water boils at 212F, which is higher than the threshold stated by Dr Greger (200F). So should we avoid subjecting tofu, nuts and seeds to boiling temperatures? Is that Dr Greger's recommendation?

What is dry heat cooking? The same article lists these techniques: pan frying, searing, roasting, sauteing, sweating, stir-frying, shallow- and deep-frying, grilling, broiling, baking and rotisserie cooking. All of these are bad for high-fat, high-protein foods like tofu, nuts and seeds.

How to eat nuts and seeds? We could eat them in their 'raw' form as sold in the market, or we could soak them and grind them. Note that nuts like cashew and almonds are not really sold in their 'raw' form — cashews are steamed to remove a toxic compound called urushiol. Raw almonds in USA are fumigated or heat treated.

Is Peanut Butter Okay?

Is peanut butter sold in supermarket made from roasted peanuts or non-roasted peanuts? I searched for "organic peanut butter" on Amazon. Each of the top 5 products are prepared from roasted peanuts: Spread the Love, 365 Everyday Value, PB Fit, Kirkland and Trader Joe's. Dr Greger says that we should not roast nuts and seeds because they produce AGEs, so peanut butter is out!

We can prepare raw peanut butter at home without roasting — it tastes very different!

Vigilant FaceBook groups like "Dr Greger & How Not to Die Independent Support Group" flag recipes with supermarket peanut butter — such recipes are not compliant with Dr Greger's guidelines.

How Not To Eat Tempeh

Dr Greger's video does not mention tempeh. Shouldn't his guideline be applied to both tofu and tempeh because tempeh is also high-fat, high-protein?

At the bottom of Forks Over Knives Diet webpage, both tofu and tempeh are listed under the Yellow column ('Enjoy in Moderation'). Since both tofu and tempeh are high-fat, high-protein, we should avoid recipes for 'roasted tempeh', 'baked barbecued tempeh', and so on.

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