One of the main problems in cooking our food is that some of the vitamins and minerals are destroyed in the process. But dieticians explain what are the best cooking methods and how to cook right to keep nutritional values for maximum health.
The main problem in our food cooking is the destruction of a considerable number of vitamins and minerals during cooking itself. This problem prevents our body from getting what it needs from the food, which can lead to the beginning of the shortage of vitamin and mineral reserves in the body. The matter is even more complex for people who suffer from digestive problems. This is due to the fact that cooking allows food to digest more easily in the affected intestine, but this food is more meager in the “building blocks” that build our body.
Here you can find the best cooking methods and tips to keep nutritional values while cooking. These cooking methods suitable for people suffering from digestive problems and for healthy people who want to “get more” from their food.
Rules to help select the appropriate cooking method
Cooking methods that preserve the nutritional values have to meet several basic rules:
Quick Cooking: The longer you heat the food, the bigger vitamins destruction is. Particularly susceptible to destruction are water soluble vitamins like vitamin C and vitamin B group.
Low cooking temperature: the higher the cooking temperature, destruction of vitamins and minerals increases.
Minimal exposure to light: cover the cooking pot to avoid possible exposure to light that affects vitamins. This way you can also shorten the cooking time.
Avoid frying: heating oil causes the appearance of carcinogenic and pro-inflammatory substances and causes the destruction of carotenoids, like pro-vitamin A.
Cooking methods that will help you to maintain nutritional values
Reduce the amount of cooking water: When you cook corns on the cob, use their cooking water for soup or rice, so the vitamins A, B and iron that are in the cooking water won’t go down the drain, but will go instead to you body.
Steam vegetables rather than boiling them: Steam cooking is cooking at a lower temperature than boiling or in the oven, and thus the impact on vitamins and minerals is small. In addition, we save the cooking water and preserve most of the minerals in the food. You can steam almost all vegetables – zucchini, squash, carrots and so on.
Crock pot baking vegetables in their skin: Here too there is no use of cooking water. For example – cooking potato with their skins preserves the vitamins and minerals. That Way you can retain about 80% of Vitamin C.
Preserving the nutritional value of food that we eat is essential to our health and you should always check whether your body gets what it needs at your physical doctor appointments. It’s important to do nutritional testing of vitamins and minerals to check deficiencies or excess which may also cause damage.
Be Well!
Northerly Nosh 