Dr Megan Rossi, a British gut health expert and author of several books on nutrition, said that no way of cooking vegetables is completely good or completely bad. The important thing is to understand the food you eat and regularly change the way you prepare a food, according to the Daily Mail .
Grilling vegetables is also a way to preserve nutrients.
Take broccoli, for example. Research shows that eating it raw maximizes the amount of nutrients like vitamin C and sulforaphane (a compound believed to have anti-cancer properties) because it is heat-sensitive.
However, cooking broccoli makes the fiber in the vegetable easier to absorb and optimizes the amount of carotenoids (which help fight oxidation, protect the eyes from the risk of blindness due to age-related macular degeneration...) that are introduced into the body.
Another familiar example is tomatoes, which lose a lot of vitamin C when cooked because this nutrient is sensitive to heat. However, cooking tomatoes in olive oil can increase the amount of lycopene (a carotenoid that helps protect the skin from the sun's UV rays) and other phytochemicals.
In general, each cooking method has its own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, Dr. Rossi recommends that the best way is to regularly change the way a food is prepared, so that the source of nutrients in the meal is as diverse as possible.
Rossi also adds that vegetables contain many water-soluble nutrients, so the longer you boil or steam them, the more nutrients they lose. Therefore, you should cook vegetables in as little water as possible. A 2013 study found that steaming and microwaving vegetables retained more nutrients than boiling them in water.
Grilling vegetables is also not a bad option. Stir-frying and sautéing with a little oil can also optimize the absorption of some important nutrients like beta-carotene (a type of carotenoid), because it is fat-soluble.
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