Cooking food makes it easier to eat and digest by softening tissues and starch. Cooking thoroughly kills bacteria by heating them, so rare or undercooked foods can still contain harmful bacteria. To be safe, thoroughly cook foods until bacteria are killed to avoid potential food poisoning.

1. MY INQUIRYI want to learn About cooking food

2. Why food needs to be cooked?Cooking softens tissues. This makes the food easier to chew, swallow and digest. For example, cooked meat, especially if it is stewed, is easy to eat and digest. Starchy foods, too, are more digestible after cooking. In the cooking process, starch granules swell and gelatinize, forming a paste for digestive juices to act on

3. How to be safe when your cooking?When food is thoroughly cooked, the heat kills food poisoning bacteria by cooking them too. Therefore, in foods which are not thoroughly cooked, e.g. rare beef or a poorly cooked omelets, it is obvious that bacteria will survive the cooking process. What is less well known is that some food poisoning bacteria can even survive very high temperatures.

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