While eating nutritious and protein-rich foods such as vegetables and meat can be a great way to maintain a healthy and balanced diet, it’s equally important to consider how you cook them.
Just like certain cooking methods can help preserve essential nutrients and reduce fat and oil in the food, some cooking processes can even increase the fat, calorie, and salt content, which you might need to avoid if you’re trying to follow a healthier diet.
So what is the proper way of cooking? Which cooking methods affect the nutritional content of foods? Let’s take a look at them, along with a few tips on how you can retain maximum nutrient content while cooking.
Boiling, Simmering, and Poaching
Since vitamin C is water-soluble and sensitive to heat, boiling lessens the vitamin C content in vegetables more than any other cooking method. Up to 60% of thiamine, niacin, and other B vitamins cannot be retained when meat is simmered and its juices dry off.
On the other hand, boiling fish was seen to help retain omega-3 fatty acid content a lot more than frying or microwaving. Fat-soluble vitamins such as D, E, and K also remain mostly unaffected when boiled.
Grilling and Broiling
Grilling and broiling require little to no oil, which can relatively be a healthier cooking process and can also help cut off calories in your dish at the same time. However, it is seen that up to 40% of B vitamins and minerals may be lost while grilling or broiling meat when the nutrient-rich juice drips off.
However, on a positive note, for those concerned about direct flames giving rise to cancer-causing substances, studies have found that PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) can be reduced by 41–89% while grilling/broiling if drippings are removed and smoke is minimized.
Frying
The fat used for frying (sautéing, pan-frying, stir-frying, shallow-frying, and deep-frying) makes the food taste very good and is often preferred by many during occasions. However, frying fatty fish has been shown to hamper its omega-3 content by up to 70–85%, while baking has been shown to cause only minimal losses.
On the other hand, frying preserves vitamin C and B vitamins in foods, and may even boost up the fiber content in potatoes by converting their starch into resistant starch. So, if you’re going to fry food, try not to overcook it, and use only the healthiest oils for frying.
Roasting and Baking
Although somewhat interchangeable, roasting is commonly used for meat-related cuisines, while baking is used for bread, muffins, cakes, and similar foods.
This form of high-heat (dry-heat), slower cooking method can also be a low-fat way of preparation and can bring out the sweetness in vegetables. While most vitamin (including vitamin C) and mineral losses are minimal while roasting or baking, the B vitamins in roasted meat may decline by as much as 40%.
Microwaving
Microwaving is a quick and easy way to cook and reheat food with electromagnetic radiation. Even studies show that short-time microwaving with less heat can help preserve the nutrients and retain the antioxidant content in the food. Meanwhile, microwaving green vegetables can degrade their vitamin C content by about 20-30%, which is quite less than most cooking methods.
Steaming
The main difference between steaming and boiling is that boiling completely submerges food in the water while steaming needs keeping the food over boiling water and cooking it with the steam produced by the water. Steaming is considered the best cooking method so far for retaining most of the nutrients, including water-soluble vitamins, sensitive to heat and water.
Tips to Preserve Nutrients in Food while Cooking
Here are a few tips to reduce nutrient loss from foods while cooking.
- Avoid peeling vegetables until after cooking them. If possible, don’t peel vegetables at all to maximize their fiber and nutrient content.
- Cook in lesser amounts of water to retain the vitamin C and B vitamins content of food.
- Add back the nutrient-rich meat juices that drip into the pan.
- Do not store any cooked food for more than a day or two, as the nutrient content may continue to degrade when the cooked food is exposed to air for long.
- Use the excess water after boiling rice or vegetables to prepare gravies or soups, or even kneading dough.
- Try to use the shortest cooking time needed for the safe consumption of vegetables/meat, eggs, or poultry.
Other Considerations
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Seasonal fruits and vegetables
To get the most nutrition from your fruits and vegetables, regardless of the way you cook them, ensure you buy only the fresh ones and what’s local and in season. Buying your produce as fresh as possible will make sure you’re starting with the highest possible level of nutrients.
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Frozen foods
When nothing is in season, don’t forget about the frozen alternatives. Frozen fruits and vegetables are usually picked at their nutritional peak and processed within hours (or days), locking in those nutrients and flavor.
And since no chemicals are added in the process before freezing, frozen foods can often be more nutritious than fresh ones because fresh foods lose vitamins and minerals over time, while freezing preserves nutrients.
Conclusion
In summary, cooking helps to make many nutrients and calories easier to absorb, thus improving the digestibility of food. However, there is no perfect method of cooking that will help preserve all nutrients. So, it’s important to understand and select the right cooking method to maximize the nutritional quality of your food.
In general, we can say that cooking for shorter periods at lower temperatures using minimal water will offer the best results.
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References
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USDA Table of Nutrient Retention Factors Release 6
https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400525/Data/retn/retn06.pdf
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Author – Praveena Kuchipudi (INFS Faculty)
