Summer BanksRaw or cooked veggies: which is best?
May 30th 2008 10:41
Are Raw Veggies Always Better?
You'd think that boiling veggies would suck the nutrients right out of them. But in the case of carrots and broccoli, that may not be so.
Settle for a Happy Medium
Steaming may be your best bet for both preserving phenolic compounds and boosting bioavailable carotenoids -- at least for broccoli. For carrots, you'll have to choose what's more important to you.
Count on Carotenoids
Think orange, yellow, red, and green to protect your DNA.
Carotenoids such as beta-carotene, lutein, and lycopene may help prevent the kind of DNA damage that contributes to cardiovascular disease and cancer. Bright orange, yellow, red, and green fruits and veggies are good sources of these carotenoids, so pile your plate high with carrots, sweet potatoes, squash, red bell peppers, spinach, and kale.
Your diet is the best way to get the optimal amount of carotenoids, which have disease-fighting antioxidant properties. Chopping, slicing, shredding, or pureeing carotenoid-containing fruits and vegetables will help you get the biggest antioxidant boost from these foods. Also, a tiny bit of dietary fat will aid absorption of carotenoids, so add a dab of olive oil or another item containing unsaturated fat. In a small study, postmenopausal women age 50 to 70 took either 12 milligrams (mg) of a mixed-carotenoid supplement containing 4 mg each of lutein, beta-carotene, and lycopene; 12 mg of beta-carotene; or a placebo daily for about 2 months. At the end of the study, women who took carotenoid supplements exhibited less DNA damage than the women who took a placebo. It's best to get your nutrients from food, so feast on spinach salads, sweet potatoes, and stir-fry vegetables sautéed in olive oil. A supplement also can help boost your carotenoid intake when your diet falls short.
Whatever cooking method you choose for your veggies, keep in mind that frying or sauteing kills off the most antioxidant compounds. Read this article for answers to the fresh vs. frozen debate.
All They're Cooked Up to Be
Try out these other tips and tricks to make your veggies extra nutritious:
* Skip the thaw. Cooking straight from frozen retains more vitamin C.
* Spice them up. Adding cumin, ginger, and these herbs will boost the antioxidant punch of both raw and cooked veggies.
4 Herbs for High-Powered Salad
Fresh herbs add extra cell-protecting phenols to salads. To boost the nutrition in your bowl -- and your belly -- add sage, rosemary, marjoram, and thyme. In a recent study, these herbs added the most antioxidants to a salad (fresh marjoram leaves more than doubled the antioxidant value). For spices, cumin soared up the salad chart. Second to cumin: fresh ginger.
Which vegetables pack the strongest antioxidant punch? Artichoke, beetroot, broccoli, garlic, a variety of leek, a type of radish, and spinach were top produce picks in a recent study. Adding onions also upped the antioxidant ante.
* Drizzle a little. Olive oil, that is. Your body better absorbs the nutrition in veggies when eaten with a bit of fat.
Why opt for cooked tomato sauce over a fresh tomato salad? Cooking actually increases its level of lycopene -- an antioxidant thought to help prevent certain types of cancer, heart disease, and vision loss.
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