Vegetables might not be your favourite food to eat, but you’ll no doubt be putting them into most of your meals. When it comes to preparing vegetables, there’s one method you can choose which will significantly impact their nutritional value.
You’re likely adding them to your meals in hopes of boosting how healthy your dinners or lunches are, but experts say there’s one way you should cook them. Vegetables can be boiled, steamed, roasted or even microwaved, depending on which ones you buy.
The Kitchen Pursuits says: “Boiling vegetables can lead to a loss of water-soluble vitamins, like Vitamin C and B vitamins, as these nutrients leach into the boiling water.
“Minerals like potassium and folate can also be affected. The extent of nutrient loss depends on the type of vegetable, the duration of cooking, and the volume of water used.
“Some vegetables are more susceptible to nutrient leaching than others.”
It says that the best method you can use is roasting your vegetables. Roasting means your veggies will retain more nutrients because the vegetables are cooked in a dry environment.
However, the high heat involved in roasting can damage certain heat-sensitive vitamins.
It might be that you alternate your method based on which vegetable you’re cooking. For example, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and bell peppers tend to develop a more caramelised, flavorful crust when roasted. Whereas potatoes may be softer when boiled.
BBC Food says: “Roasting is a great way to enhance flavour in vegetables as it helps release natural sugars.
“It’s also considered to be a good method of retaining vitamin B1 (thiamine) and vitamin B2 (riboflavin).”
It adds that roasting is also recommended as a way of cooking tomatoes as it can help increase the lycopene content in them.
Lycopene is an antioxidant that is believed to protect cardiovascular health and is easily absorbed in the body when tomatoes are cooked.
Jamie Oliver has shared his perfect roast veggies recipe and it’s one way to make your greens tastier.
By making sure you cook your vegetables in the right way, you can ensure you’ll be getting the maximum amount of nutrients from your meals.