If you choose to boil your vegetables, you lose your vitamins to today food recipes because some vitamins dissolve in water. When a potato is boiled, for instance, a large portion of its B and C vitamins may go into the boiling water.
By making a soup with the potato and liquid, for instance, you can still get the benefits of these nutrients even if you drink the liquid. A higher quantity of vitamins and other nutrients are typically preserved by other cooking techniques like grilling, roasting, steaming, stir-frying, or microwaving.
The following ideas will help you maintain food’s nutritional content during cooking:
- Minimize water: When cooking, use as little water as you can. Use boiling water rather than cold water if you must use water.
- Cut down on cooking time: Cook food for as little time as necessary to ensure it is safe and appetizing.
- Reduce surface area: To lessen the surface area of food that is exposed to water, cut it into larger pieces.
- Select fresh ingredients: Make use of fresh items that aren’t sliced, bruised, or overripe.
- Use different cooking techniques: Compared to grilling or roasting, steaming, stir-frying, microwaving, pressure cooking, and air frying are less harmful to nutrients.
- Use acids: To help stop vitamin C loss, add acids to salad dressings, such as vinegar or lemon juice.
- Conserve cooking water by making soups, sauces, or gravies with the water you use to prepare veggies.
- Cook potatoes in their skins: Cook potatoes in their skins without chopping them.
- Proper storage: Keep food in a dark, cool location.
- Select fresh items that aren’t bruised, sliced, scraped, or overripe.
- Before chopping, wash the vegetables. Reduce the amount of time spent soaking or washing in order to limit the loss of nutrients.
- To reduce vitamin exposure to water during cooking and washing, chop veggies into large pieces.
- Since a vegetable peeler only removes a very thin layer of skin, use it to remove the skin.
- When cooking, use as little water as possible. Add the vegetables to the boiling water to begin cooking them.
- Use pressure cooking and steaming to prepare veggies.
- Foods should be kept in a cool, dark location.
- Instead of adding the raw food to cold water when boiling, add it to the boiling water.
- One method of cooking that uses the least quantity of water is steaming.
- Since cooking water contains water-soluble vitamins and minerals, it should ideally be used for gravies, sauces, or soups.
- Cook for as little time as is required to ensure that the dish is safe and tasty.
- Baking soda promotes the loss of vitamin C, so avoid using it to keep veggies green.
- Copper utensils contribute to the destruction of vitamin C, so avoid using them.
A NOTE ON ULTRA PROCESSED FOODS
Products made using industrial techniques and/or including materials sourced from industry are referred to as ultra-processed foods and beverages.
Ultra-processed today food recipes employ different processing processes than the more conventional and basic ones mentioned above. Fractionation, hydrogenation, hydrolysis, extrusion, molding, and pre-frying are examples of industrial processes.
Ultra-processed foods tend to be heavy in added sugars, salt, oils, and fats, and are usually very convenient and tasty. Additionally, they contain chemicals and substances including artificial flavors and colors, emulsifiers, and inverted sugars that are typically not found in a household pantry.
