Healthiest Ways to Cook Vegetables without Losing Nutrients
One of the most common sayings regarding vegetables is that cooking decimates all their essential nutrients, so it is ideal to eat them partially cooked or raw. However, this probably won’t be the situation for a wide range of vegetables. Numerous cooking techniques change the dietary elements of veggies, where crucial nutrients, for example, vitamin C, B1, and polyphenols can be diminished or vanished totally. Regardless of whether you like veggies or not, there is one thing you must know without any doubt i.e. vegetables are great for your well-being. Also, you can make them increasingly nutritious if you cook them up in manners that increase their advantages. Moreover, place all the vegetables whether raw or cooked in small blast chiller to keep them fresh for longer and follow the below-given healthiest ways while cooking the vegetables to avoid the loss of vital nutrients:
1- Always Sauté vegetable Instead of Deep Frying:
Recent research indicates that the fat infiltrates the vegetables while deep frying them and they become dry. Yet sautéing the vegetables in a small amount of oil, for example, extra-virgin olive oil is an incredible method to cook numerous veggies. In addition to the fact that it enhances the flavors, yet the olive oil serves to enhance the assimilation of phytonutrients such as phenols and carotenes. That is the reason a large number of the nutrients in the vegetables are fat-soluble, demonstrating that your body retains them well in the presence of fats.
2- Steaming Vegetables is an Ideal Option:
While cooking vegetables, it is an ideal approach to keep its cooking temperature, time, and any kind of liquid to the lowest. That is the reason steaming is probably the healthiest method to prepare the vegetables. While boiling the vegetables, water dissolvable nutrients like vitamin C, B1 and folate tend to drain into the water. In this way, except if you are going to drink the water alongside your vegetables, for example, when preparing soups, these nutrients are ordinarily transferred down the sink.
3- Griddling & Roasting Veggies:
In opposition to flame broiling, which typically includes a type of charcoal, griddling utilizes a skillet with particular elevated edges and is regularly used on the stove. Vegetables griddled with a few drops of olive oil can provide strong flavor and be relatively nutritious. Baking or roasting veggies is all in or all out, and based on the vegetable. Particular vegetables, temperature, and cooking time decides the nutrient content of cooked vegetables.
4- Add Citrus Fruit Juice to Vegetables:
Many veggies such as kale, spinach, and broccoli comprise of heaps of iron, yet due to its form, it is hard for us to utilize properly, so a large portion of it goes over undigested. Citrus fruits contain a lot of vitamin C which reacts chemically with the iron, thus transforming it into a form that is all the more effectively consumed by us. Along these lines, feel free to include a sprinkle of lemon, orange, lime, or grapefruit juice while stir-frying the veggies.
5- Use Minimum Amount of Water:
Nutrients are lost when vegetables are cooked in the water. To keep their nutrients, cook them in a minimum amount of water for a short period. Steaming is a milder method to cook the vegetables, in this way, veggies do not interact directly with a lot of water.