3 Food Questions: Peanutbutter Cookies, Salmon in a can, Oatmeal prep

[Tower]

Ive been doing really good with my diet, but these are the 3 questions that i just stumbled upon....

Question 1
I eat a lot of peanutbutter, but lately it got to me...and i cant drop it off my diet....if i make peanut butter cookies (which wont get on my verves), do i count the calories the same way for the peanutbutter as before?
what im asking is....no calories will be lost etc if i make the cookies...lets say i put in 500 calories worth of natural peanut butter in my cookies....when they are made, and i eat them all, can i also say i ate 500 calories worth of peanut butter? (not counting other stuff put in the cookies)
or is some of it gonna be lost?

Question 2
Is Salmon in a can a good idea ? As in overall what did you guys think when you tried it ? Is it basicly the same as the non canned one?

Question 3
Isnt it a bitch to make Natural Oatmeal on the stove??
first off, it takes a while, i mean a whillleeee...and you always have to stir the milk so it doesnt burn....im not considering instant ofcourse but why is it so diffiicult....I tried in the microwave...and whats happens is the oats dont open up to their maximum or the milk just raises up over the container....gosh....i think im gonna drop oatmeal because of this...how do u guys make it??????......

[Lady C]

PB won't change in values just because you cook it.

There is nothing wrong with canned salmon. I love it on a salad.

oatmeal

[DuncanMcFl]

If you're cooking oatmeal in the microwave and the oats don't "open up" totally it just means you're not cooking them long enough. If the milk is spilling out then cook it with a cover on the bowl.

[CliffStamp]

You can lose calories in cooking for several reasons, first because you burn the food and it isn't digested, however this is counteracted often by the fact the cooking raises the digestability of many foods (vegetables for example). The real factor of consequence is fat rendering, some of the peanut oil may render out and stay on the pan. Since oil is very caloric dense, a lot of fatty foods lose a lot of calories when cooked (meats can drop by half or more for example).

Canned salmon is problematic for two reasons, first off all it is precooked, generally at high temperatures which can oxidize the highly PUFA, secondly because the can material itself is toxic. However on the other hand, canned salmon are generally younger ones which don't have the higher level of organic mercury that the older and larger ones have due to predation on younger ones.

Soak your oats overnight, 1-2 days if possible in an acidic medium (yogurt, natural whey,lemon juice etc.) and they will cook in minutes. If they are sticking you have them up way too high.

-Cliff

[gordian]

If you have the means, go for fresh salmon or even the salmon that comes in plastic packeges. The quality of the salmon is better. Also, try to avoid farm-raised salmon of any kind--they actually aren't naturally pink when farm-raised so they generally use dyes or other "mixers" to enhance its color and make it look like wild salmon.