Nutritional loss can also be a consequence of cooking methods. Most of us don’t know that the cooking methods we use every day are reducing the nutritional value of food. Let’s talk about foods that you might be cooking wrong, leading to reduced nutritive value.
Steaming is a much better method to cook cruciferous vegetables in comparison to microwaving or boiling. The cabbage family contains an enzyme which retains cancer fighting nutrients only when the mode of preparation is steaming. In a study, researchers found that the enzyme myrosinase is necessary to release the cancer fighting compounds, but most cooking methods destroy it. But steaming is a slower, gentler heating method, and isn’t intense enough to kill myrosinase. So amongst all cooking methods, steaming seems like the best option to keep the nutrition value intact.
Try to eat fruits as a whole, especially Vitamin C rich fruits like guava, strawberries, and other berries .The reason is that once vitamin C enriched fruits are cut open and exposed to the environment, their nutrition quality begins to breakdown because of light and oxygen.
When tomatoes are cooked, it increases their levels of lycopene, a chemical which boosts antioxidant levels. So, those who eat lots of cooked tomatoes will never have a lycopene deficiency.
Cooking and nutrition are related to each other. Always make sure to check the correct cooking methods of the above food groups so that you can minimize nutrition loss from it.