1. He wasn’t boasting, he was decoding a rule. “Raw plants defend themselves,” he said. Cooking breaks those defenses — a survival code rewritten by fire. In Shanghai tests, lightly frying broccoli cut almost 80% of the goitrins that block the thyroid. That small heat shift flips food from enemy to ally. 2. In the West, “clean” means untouched. In East Asia, “clean” means refined by flame. The wok acts like an external stomach, doing half your digestion before the first bite. That energy saved g