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Originally Posted by wulph  But I haven't seen a shred of credible evidence against steamed vegetables, etc. |
I have. Among other sources there's a decent explanation of the sordid details of the damage cooking does to food in the book
The 80-10-10 Diet.
In a nutshell, cooking changes the chemical structure of food in a way that is toxic to the body, and it actually triggers your immune system to deal with it.
Your white blood cell count will increase by about a factor of 5 after eating cooked food so your body can deal with the toxic overload. This doesn't happen, however, when eating a meal of raw fruits and veggies. Whether or not you believe cooked food is toxic, your immune system apparently does.
Cooking has many other detrimental effects too, including destroying thousands of positive substances in food while creating new toxins. Occasionally cooking will increase the bioavailability of a chemical or two, such as lycopene in tomatoes, but it simultaneously damages many, many more, so the net effect is always negative.