Effects of cooked food on microbes that eat it?

[CitrusHigh]

Does anyone know anything about what effect cooked vs raw food has on microbes? Obviously we know that cooked food is toxic to us humans. Is it the same for individual microbes or do the rules of the game change because they're consuming things at a microscopic level? For example if I had a strain of bacteria and I fed one population of that strain a hunk of cooked steak, and then I took the other population of the same strain and fed it raw steak, am I going to see any developmental or functional differences between the two populations?

I'm going to hazard a guess and say yes. I think this because the heat from cooking is going to warp everything, down to the individual strings/atoms isn't it? And isn't that what causes the health problems in we macro-organisms?

I don't remember what made me think to post this question, but seems there was some purpose to it, when I think of it, I'll include that too, haha!   

[TylerDurden]

Yes.  Aged, cooked food is about the worst thing you can eat.

[CitrusHigh]

Thanks for the reply Ty but I'm not asking for the anthropocentric view and how it would relate to food, what I mean is, if I'm one of those little bacterium, is it going to be detrimental to my health to eat that cooked meat?

[TylerDurden]

Thanks for the reply Ty but I'm not asking for the anthropocentric view and how it would relate to food, what I mean is, if I'm one of those little bacterium, is it going to be detrimental to my health to eat that cooked meat?

  Well, if toxins from cooked foods have been shown to affect us on a cellular level, then, logically, bacteria would also be negatively affected as well.

[CitrusHigh]

oh ma gosh, I typed a huge reply to your message Ty and apparently closed the window before submitting it, will have to lay off the reefer a bit I guess.

Anyway, ok great. But to better understand why cooking is so detrimental we should examine how exactly those bacteria are affected by cooked foods. We would want to know things like

Is reproduction hindered?
Are offspring mutated in anyway?
If they are mobile creatures is there mobility affected?
Any other differences between the two populations? (the cooked vs raw)
Also are any of the effects of eating the cooked food reversed when those affected bacteria are given fresh raw meat?

Anyone with access to a reasonably powerful microscope care to perform an informal experiment? All it would involve is cutting a hunk of meat in half, cooking one half all the way through ,then rubbing the cooked piece against the raw piece. Wash the cooked residue off the raw. Isolate both from excessive air flow and of course you'll need to make the pertinent observations periodically from beginning to end.

If I could get access to a microscope you can bet I would perform this experiment myself. I'll be looking for one in the mean time in the event that there is no one sufficiently interested or motivated to try this.