Cooking many foods improves their taste and texture in the opinions of most people, and it can make some difficult-to-eat foods - the kinds you have to chew for five minutes just to eat them raw - more easily palatable. But the primary benefit of cooking food is to increase energy available to the body. This has always been the primary benefit, whether primitive humans first adopting the habit of cooking consciously realized it or not.
In your own words, you are describing foods that are not "easily palatable" in their raw state. This is a clue that they are not the ideal foods for humans. Every animal on Earth eats a raw diet and humans aren't designed any differently. The foods that are most palatable to us in their raw state, mainly fruits, some vegetables, and nuts/seeds, are the foods that human bodies are designed to digest and assimilate.
Certainly, we can survive on many other foods, we have been doing so for millennia. As humans moved away from the tropics and into harsher climates, cooking became very helpful. No one wants to chew on raw beef for five minutes. It's neither efficient nor tasty. That said, surviving is not the same as thriving
