How to Eat Your Veges Essential Cooking Habits

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How to Eat Your Veges Essential Cooking Habits 

Raw Vegetables May Not Always Be Best

Even when eating raw vegetables, other factors must be considered when

evaluating the nutritional quality of the food. How fresh is the raw vegetable?

Significant nutrient loss occurs in raw vegetables if they have been picked too

long before they are eaten and have been exposed too long to light and air. How

well will you chew the raw vegetables before swallowing them? When a food is not

cooked, the body depends much more heavily upon chewing to help prepare the

vegetable for digestion. Cooking a vegetable, even for a very short period like

one minute, can be a way of enhancing its digestibility.

 

Cooking Method and Timing

Nutrient contents of vegetables especially the water-soluble vitamins such as B

vitamins and Vitamin C will be affected by the the cooking method as well as the

amount of time you cook a vegetable

 

The longer you cook a vegetable, the more heat-sensitive vitamins are lost. Also

vitamins which are water-soluble leach into the cooking liquid if the vegetables

are cooked in water. Use cooking methods that re-uses the cooking liquid such as

soups, or uses very little liquid such as steaming or microwaving to preserve

nutrients.

 

In the case of some vegetables, cooking can actually increase the variety of

nutrients that get released inside our digestive tract. The cooking of onions or

the roasting of garlic are good examples. Onions and garlic are both members of

the Allium family of vegetables which contain unusual amounts of

sulfur-containing compounds which protect our health.

 

Frozen Vegetables

Most frozen vegetables are processed quickly after harvesting, so nutrients are

retained. Convenient way for  easy preparation.They can also be stored for

longer periods with little change in nutrient, taste or texture.

 

Fresh vegetables, on the other hand are higher in fiber plus some vegetables are

only available fresh such as leafy ones. With fresh vegetables, you have store

them carefully as some vitamins such as vitamin C are very perishable. The

longer you store the vegetables, the more vitamins are lost. Eat fresh

vegetables as soon as possible after purchase for maximum benefit.

 

Steaming  helps to retain the nutrients in the vegetables, especially

water-soluble vitamins such as B vitamins and vitamin C. The vitamins dissolve

into the water when you boil the vegetables; you can help retain the vitamins by

re-using the cooking liquid for soup, sauces and gravy. Also avoid soaking

vegetables in water before cooking to reduce losses.

 

Cook vegetables only to tender crisp, use a lid to speed up cooking time, and

leave the peel on whenever possible to help reduce nutrient loss. HIgh

temperature and long cooking can destroy heat sensitive nutrients

 

Boiling

Boiling is the cooking method that causes the greatest loss of nutrients in

vegetables. Many of the water-soluble vitamins as well as other nutrients are

transferred into the water and lost if the vegetables are drained and the water

is thrown away rather than reserved and consumed as soup or broth.

 

Boiling and draining vegetables results in a loss of 75% of the vitamin C and

folate, 70% of the thiamine and potassium, 65% of the vitamin B6, 55% of the

niacin and sodium, 50% of the vitamin B12, 45% of the riboflavin and copper, 40%

of the iron and magnesium, and 35% of the vitamin A and phosphorus

 

Baking

Dry heat from baking destroys certain vitamins and other nutrients, including

vitamins C, B1 and lysine. The effect is worse if the heat is too high or the

vegetables are baked for Food research has made it clear that even 30 seconds in

steam will alter the nutrient composition of a vegetable and will cause some

loss of nutrients. However, when the exposure to steam happens for such a short

time, this loss of nutrients is minimal and is not, in our opinion, a practical

problem.

To avoid unnecessary nutrient loss, cooking each food properly is absolutely

essential

 

Blanching

It is recommended to blanch vegetables before freezing them. Blanching is the

process of scalding the vegetables by placing them in boiling water for a short

period of time, usually about 2-3 minutes. This process kills bacteria and

inactivates certain enzymes that can impair the color, flavor and texture of

vegetables when they are frozen. However, blanching even for a short period of

time still causes the loss of some nutrients. To minimize nutrient loss,

vegetables should be placed into ice water immediately after blanching.

 

Microwaving

Since microwaving is fast and only requires a small amount of water, it is often

recommended as a preferred method to prepare vegetables to avoid nutrient loss.

However, one study found that microwaving drastically reduces the amount of

antioxidants in broccoli. Flavonoids in broccoli were decreased by 97% after

microwaving, compared to 66% after boiling and only 11% when the broccoli was

steamed. On the other hand, another study found more flavonoids were retained in

potatoes and tomatoes by microwaving than by boiling.

 

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