Cooking secrets to help "preserve" vitamins in food

You may have chosen healthy, nutritious, and best-for-health food sources, but due to a few incorrect steps during cooking, the nutrition in the food will not be retained.

As we know, during the cooking process, many types of vitamins are destroyed, and minerals can be dissolved, preventing the body from getting enough necessary nutrients and leading to vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

For people with digestive issues, this problem becomes even worse because food cooked using improper methods can cause indigestion in the intestinal tract.

Below, Ola88 summarizes the best tips and cooking methods to retain the nutritional value of food, as well as suitable methods for people with digestive issues.

Cook quickly, do not reheat food



Science has shown that the longer the cooking time and the higher the temperature, the more vitamins and great nutrients in food are lost. In addition, the longer food is cooked, water-soluble vitamins like Vitamin B or C will completely dissolve into the broth, leaving only omegas or fats stable.

Reheating food multiple times, especially vegetables, is also discouraged as it easily causes vitamins to be destroyed quickly.

Cook at low temperatures

The higher the temperature at which food is cooked, the more the structure of vitamins changes. Therefore, you should cook at low to moderate temperatures to ensure the stability of the structure of vitamins and minerals.

Limit exposure to light

You should cover the pot while cooking and avoid opening the lid frequently so that food is not exposed to light, which affects vitamin content. Not to mention, some foods high in vitamin B2 are very susceptible to light and can be oxidized by this factor.

Covering the pot also reduces the evaporation of certain nutrients while saving cooking time because food will cook faster.

Avoid deep-frying and frying food



Food cooked in hot oil can produce carcinogenic substances and cause inflammation in the body.

Studies have shown that food fried at excessively high temperatures easily burns, which is a leading cause of stomach cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, and rectal cancer. High temperatures also cause the destruction of carotenoids, especially pro-vitamin A in vegetables, and denature proteins in meat, creating bound compounds that are difficult to digest.

Reduce the amount of water when cooking



Cooking methods such as boiling and stewing are obviously healthier than deep-frying and frying. However, if you are not careful, boiling and cooking can still result in the loss of many vitamins in food. Some vitamins dissolve in water when heated; therefore, you should only cook with a moderate amount of water and consume the broth as well so as not to lose nutrients. Cooking with too much water and discarding it will lead to a large loss of vitamins.

Steam food instead of boiling




Food prepared by steaming cooks at a lower temperature, so only a very small fraction of vitamins and minerals are affected by heat.

Not using water to cook food also reduces the amount of dissolved vitamins compared to boiling methods.

You can steam vegetables such as squash, pumpkin, kohlrabi, carrots, etc.

Do not peel certain vegetables and root crops



Many people have the habit of removing all vegetable skins, believing that this part comes into contact with dirty soil or chemicals. However, in some vegetables and root crops, the skin contains even more vitamins than the inside.

For example, the skins of pumpkin, radish, carrot, eggplant, etc., contain high levels of vitamin C and should not be discarded during preparation.

According to recommendations, except for hard-skinned root vegetables that cannot be cooked soft, you should not peel all vegetables and root crops; simply wash them thoroughly and cook them.

Happy cooking, everyone!