Why cooked peanuts give you more energy than raw ones
Cooking increases net energy gain from a lipid-rich food.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Blending peanuts didn’t improve fat digestibility—even though cell walls were visibly broken.
Common sense says crushing food helps digestion, but the study shows mechanical processing alone doesn’t unlock lipids—only heat does. This contradicts assumptions about food prep efficiency.
Practical Takeaways
Choose roasted or cooked nuts over raw ones if you want to maximize energy absorption—especially if you're active, trying to gain weight, or on a high-fat diet.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Blending peanuts didn’t improve fat digestibility—even though cell walls were visibly broken.
Common sense says crushing food helps digestion, but the study shows mechanical processing alone doesn’t unlock lipids—only heat does. This contradicts assumptions about food prep efficiency.
Practical Takeaways
Choose roasted or cooked nuts over raw ones if you want to maximize energy absorption—especially if you're active, trying to gain weight, or on a high-fat diet.
Publication
Journal
American journal of physical anthropology
Year
2015
Authors
E. E. Groopman, Rachel N. Carmody, R. Wrangham
Related Content
Claims (6)
Food processing reduces the metabolic cost of digestion by pre-masticating and simplifying nutrient structures, thereby increasing net energy absorption.
Cooking nuts and other fatty foods may have helped early humans grow bigger brains and be more active because it gave them more energy from the same food — like getting a free energy boost.
Nutrition labels say raw and roasted peanuts have the same calories, but your body actually gets more energy from roasted ones — the current system doesn’t account for how cooking changes how well your body can digest the fat.
When you cook peanuts, your body can absorb more of the fat inside them, so you get more energy from the same amount of peanuts — mice that ate cooked peanuts gained more weight than those that ate raw ones, even when they ate the same amount.
Crushing peanuts into butter doesn’t help your body get more energy from them — only cooking does. Mice that ate blended peanuts gained the same amount of weight as those that ate whole ones, even though the nuts were crushed.