New Delhi: Eating vegetables in any form is something people should be doing more of. Whether they’re raw or cooked, veggies supply important nutrients for very few calories—so if you love raw carrot sticks, don’t hesitate. However, there are some foods that are healthier cooked.
Spinach
The leafy green is packed with nutrients, but you’ll absorb more calcium and iron if you eat it cooked. The reason: Spinach is loaded with oxalic acid, which blocks the absorption of iron and calcium but breaks down under high temperatures.
Mushrooms
A cup of cooked white mushrooms has about twice as much muscle-building potassium, heart-healthy niacin, immune-boosting zinc, and bone-strengthening magnesium as a cup of raw ones. That’s according to the Department of Agriculture’s nutrient database. Even mushrooms considered edible can sometimes contain small amounts of toxins, but they can be destroyed through cooking.
Carrots
Cooking ignites this veggie’s cancer-fighting carotenoids, the nutrient responsible for its orange hue. A 2008 study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that boiling carrots until tender boosted their concentration of carotenoids by 14 percent. But hold the frying pan! Pan-frying caused carotenoid levels to dip by 13 percent.
Tomatoes
With tomatoes, whether they’re baked, fried, or even puréed into spaghetti sauce, heat increases a phytochemical, lycopene, that has been linked to lower rates of cancer and heart disease. It also gives red tomatoes their rosy color. According to a 2002 landmark study, heating tomatoes for 30 minutes at 190.4° F (the temperature of soup simmering on a stove) boosted the levels of absorbable lycopene by 35 percent. Though cooking reduced the vitamin C content, the study found that it raised the total power of the disease-fighting antioxidant by 62 percent.
Broccoli and Cauliflower
When raw, these crucifers, as their class is called, are packed with glucosinolates, which can convert to variety of cancer-fighting compounds in your body. In order for the glucosinolates you eat to make that transition, however, an enzyme in the veggies called myrosinase has to be active. You can activate it by chopping the veggies up or chewing as you eat—but cooking can destroy it.
