Tip Of The Week: Healthy Cooking

photo credit: Fit Day

Tip 4: Retain foods nutrients while cooking

Did you know that how you prepare, cook, and even store foods can affect not only safety, but also flavour and nutrients? Some people presume raw foods are more nutritious than cooked ones.

However, some foods are less nutritious raw because they contain substances that destroy or disarm other nutrients, like raw dried beans contain enzyme inhibitors that obstruct with the work of enzymes that enable our body to digest protein. Heating disarms the enzyme inhibitor.

There’s no denying the fact that some nutrients are lost when foods are cooked. Simple strategies such as steaming rather than boiling food, or broiling rather than frying, can significantly reduce the loss of nutrients when cooking food. However, studies have found that cooking can actually amplify some nutrients, like lycopene in tomatoes and antioxidants in carotenoids such as carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, and peppers.

In fact, Nutrients in some foods are lost by handling and preparation, overcooking or simply allowing the foods to soak in water for too long. What if I tell you that there are certain things you can do to retain maximum amount of nutrients in your food and best keep the flavour during the cooking process? After all, we’ve already gotten the healthy cooking methods down…why not take the extra step towards healthy cooking at every stage of the cooking. 

With the few tips below on food preparation and cooking techniques, you can maximize the nutrient quality and flavours of your favourite foods.

Food Preparation

Handling and preparing food properly is crucial to food safety and can also affect the quality of foods.

1. Wash all fresh vegetables and with fruits cool tap water. Be sure to wash clean thick-skinned vegetables and fruits such as melons or squash using a soft brush and water. Avoid soaking fruits and vegetables as you wash because some vitamins dissolve in water.
2. Leave edible skins on vegetables and fruits — for example, on carrots, potatoes or pears — and trim away as little skin as possible. Most nutrients are found in the leaves surface, skin and areas close to the skin, not in the centre. Skins and peels also are natural barriers that help protect against nutrient loss. Just wash them thoroughly first.
3. Cut vegetables that need to be cooked longer into large chunks because fewer vitamins are destroyed as few surfaces are exposed. When cutting and preparing food, avoid cross-contamination by using a separate utensils and cutting board for raw meat, poultry and seafood.
4. Skip the urge to rinse grains, such as brown rice even white rice (some are fortified with nutrients), before cooking because nutrients may wash off.

Cooking Techniques

How food is cooked can enhance or destroy nutrients and flavour.

1.       Consider the time and temperature. The longer the cooking time and the higher the temperature, the more nutrients are lost because many vitamins are sensitive to heat and air exposure (particularly vitamins C, B and folate). Overcooking meat can affect flavour. Don't overcook vegetables, either! Short cooking times help vegetables keep their flavour and bright colour. Strong-flavoured vegetables, such as turnips and Brussels sprouts, can become even stronger when overcooked.

2.       Cook fruits and vegetables in a small amount of water. Water-soluble vitamins are easily dissolved and washed away by water. Therefore, the less you use, the more you will preserve the nutrients — or better yet, steam them in a vegetable steamer or microwave. Steaming or microwaving retains nutrients because vegetables usually don’t come in contact with cooking liquids.

3.       Quickly cook (until just tender-crisp) vegetables such as green beans, snow peas, asparagus and broccoli. Some nutrients, such as vitamin C and B vitamins, are destroyed easily by heat. The shorter the cooking time, the more nutrients are preserved. Also include more stir-fry recipes in your diet. Stir-fried vegetables are cooked quickly to retain their crunch (and associated nutrients).

4.       Microwaving is also an excellent option because it is so fast that heat-sensitive nutrients aren't exposed to heat for long. Also, microwaving does not require added fat. There's a flavour advantage, too; unless overcooked, vegetables retain the tender-crisp qualities and colour that make them appealing.

5.       For red cabbage and beets, add a little vinegar or lemon juice to the cooking water. This helps retain their bright colour. Don not add baking soda; even though the alkali in baking soda keeps vegetables looking greener, it also destroys vitamin C and can make them mushy due to cellulose breakdown. Tip: Adding lemon juice to green vegetables while cooking turns them bright green; add sauce or juice after cooking.

       6.       When cooking, always cover your pot to hold in the steam and heat. This  will also to help                    reduce cooking time.

7.       Canning is cooking, thus canned vegetables don’t require to be cooked again. They would lose flavour and nutrients. Just reheat canned vegetables on the in the microwave oven or burner.

 Storing

Poor storage destroys quality and flavour, while storing food correctly — including the temperature, time, location and correct container — helps keep their safety, quality, nutrients and flavour longer.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, are ways you can avoid destroying food nutrient contents at every stage of the cooking.