Vegetables - Raw or Cooked?
Will Praht
Everyone seems to have an opinion on this one. Raw you get all the nutritional value and cooking kills all the beneficial parts.
What we do know is that eating raw vegetables helps reduce cholesterol and the risk of some cancers, so continue eating raw.
Some of the latest studies however show cooking may have no detrimental effect on the nutritional value of the vegetables.
In fact some nutrients in the vegetables, such as the antioxidant lycopene may become more readily available for your body to process.
So don't be afraid to cook your veggies, but don't overcook them. Steaming may actually be the most efficient way to cook vegetables and retain the most nutritional value, but even steaming you can overcook.
Vegetables in general do not need a lot of cooking time to be ready to serve, so treat them as a main course and cook them with the appropriate amount of time to be ready with the rest of your meal, rather than cooking them the whole time you work on the rest of the meal.
