that's a great idea however, there's no nutritional analysis given, just benefits and that it should be boiled or dried O_O'''
why does nobody suggest ''just eat the god damn leaf''. oh nooo, cos fresh leaves are toxic right x.x
boiling, just destroys food.. and leaves it more empty
as funny as it may seem to you, i'm not trolling. i'm actully very serious about my statements.
Time to dispel a myth:
while generally speaking, nutrients can get destroyed by high heat, in many cases -- just as with fires and a forest floor -- heat brings out nutrients. In plants this is common, for the simple fact that proper heating breaks down the cellulose that would otherwise bind in nutrients. The catch is that too much heating goes right over to the original generalization -- nutrients can be destroyed.
A fair example is peas: start with them frozen, and cook them just until they turn almost too hot to eat, and you're enhancing the nutrition you get. But cook them till they're mush, and the only way to get all the nutrients is to drink the water you boiled them in (and maybe lick the pot dry). So all those peas in school lunches, boiled till they mash just from setting your fork on them, drained dry before going on your tray? Lots if nutrients went down the drain, and probably some got destroyed altogether, so their best value to you is as fiber.
A more interesting example is green bell peppers: they naturally contain compounds to which a fair number of people are allergic. Mostly those compounds are destroyed by cooking -- so, for example, someone who can't eat them raw could have them on pizza -- but something is also activated so a small minority of people (me, for example, which is why I know this) can eat them raw... but eating them cooked is asking for trouble (like spending a couple of hours feeling like someone's playing around in your upper digestive tract with a red-hot butcher knife [or two]).
Anyway, there are foods which are toxic uncooked, and they're not terribly uncommon. There are some which are toxic unless they're prepared in other ways, too -- soaking, soaking in salt water, and other tricks.
And we know these things because humans down through the ages have learned them, often the hard way. All the information is out there. You might have to dig a bit, but at least other people have done the hard part for you, like die from stomach bleeding because they ate the wrong uncooked leaf so someone else could write down "causes stomach bleeding when uncooked".
And we describe people who would risk their own health in order to find out for themselves with a simple technical term: fools.
