Best Cooking Method
Which are the gentlest cooking methods for preserving nutrients and which vegetables have more antioxidants cooked than raw.
-
Tags
-
Supplementary Info
-
Sources Cited
Howard LR, Castrodale C, Brownmiller C, Mauromoustakos A. Jam processing and storage effects on blueberry polyphenolics and antioxidant capacity. J Agric Food Chem. 2010 Apr 14;58(7):4022-9. Jiménez-Monreal AM, García-Diz L, Martínez-Tomé M, Mariscal M, Murcia MA. Influence of cooking methods on antioxidant activity of vegetables. J Food Sci. 2009 Apr;74(3):H97-H103. -
Acknowledgements
Discuss this Video
So informative. I am surprised steaming was not included.
Oceanic–I was surprised too! I do have some videos that cover steaming, though. Check out all my videos on cooking methods
.
What about boiling vegetables in a soup (where you eat rather than throw away the vegetable water)? I would think that provides superior antioxidant retention.
Hi, Dr. I just discovered your site a couple days ago and am really getting a lot (of ammunition for whole-food plant based diet) out of it. My friend just asked me whether garlic was good for you (she likes to eats it roasted) and whether there’s such a thing as getting too much, so I turned to you, but surprisingly couldn’t find anything. Do you have an opinion on garlic?
Garlic is great! I profile the whole allium class of vegetables here: http://nutritionfacts.org/videos/1-anticancer-vegetable/
Wow, I can cook pretty much any vegetable without fearing too much loss of nutrients! I’m so shocked about cooking carrots increasing in value about carrots and celery. I put carrots in my pasta.
I’m curious what the raw food vegans would think of such studies.
Raw food vegans have just as bad science as the paleolithic diet advocates! It’s all very cherry picked and involves a lot of half truths.
I’ve experienced what you’re describing. I’d still air on the opinions of the raw vegans though. Of course, I have more in common with them, but I try to be as impartial as I can.
I use a pressure cooker to steam small beets. I routinely take off the thin skins with my hands, before eating them. Nutritionally, is it better to leave them on?
Did the study (or any others you’re familiar with) analyze the cooking methods for other nutrient loss/gain aside from antioxidants? Is antioxidant preservation the best metric to use when determining an optimal cooking method? Thanks!
I am surprised that the microwave isn’t singled out as a bad cooking method because I often read or hear stuff mostly on the internet according to which microwave destroys the nutrients in food and thus such a cooking method should be avoided. You might have heard yourself advice against micowaving infant milk (1 960 000 occurrences with “infant”, “milk”, “microwave” from search on Google). Would you be kind enough to explain this discrepancy?
The chief reason it’s not a good idea to thaw breast milk in a microwave is that they heat unevenly and scald your baby.
To add on to Dr. Greger’s comment, there has been little evidence that microwaving foods in general makes them bad to eat. The word “nuking” is tossed around with microwaving but X rays have nothing to do with microwaving. All cooking methods provide certain nutrient loss (to an extent). Boiling specific plant foods, especially bell peppers and green leefies causes a significant drop in antioxidant content unless you drink the liquid, more so than microwaving.
We should eat vegetables whichever way entices us to eat the most. If for example we lose some nutrients from boiling broccoli, just eat an extra floret to make up for the loss. Not only that, but you can eat more florets because the heat is basically pre digestion.
A very informative video on this is here: http://nutritionfacts.org/videos/raw-food-nutrient-absorption-2/
Don’t get me wrong though, eating raw food is essential for optimal health. There is nothing more nutritious than a big raw, dark leefy green salad!