To Cook or Not To Cook

Written By Ruth Cruz

To cook or not to cook, that is the question that seems to be plaguing some of us that are attempting any of the new eating plans floating around these days. We hear so much about raw food diets, vegan diets, paleo diets, pescatarian diets…the list goes on and on.

I myself have been trying to get more veggies and fruits into my daily healthy eating regiment. I’ve chosen to juice a good many of them, to maximize the volume. Yet while flipping channels, I saw an infomercial for a new version of the Nutribullet that has a heated cycle for vegetables considered healthier when eaten cooked. This is something I’ve been whirling around my head for sometime as I’m aware of the basics like eat tomatoes and mushrooms cooked, but I wasn’t sure which of the other veggies I’d get the maximum benefit from when cooked or should I keep eating some of them raw.

Turns Out You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

So here are a few health notes on what I’ve learned and what I’ll be practicing. Let’s start with a basic list of foods that might be considered to eat either way. First here are a few choices to eat raw.

Beets – Beets lose more than 25 percent of their folate when cooked. Although not a high amount, and some will still choose to eat them cooked, eating them raw will preserve this brain booster. This root veggie has also been shown to significantly boost endurance.

Kale – While cooked kale is still very nutritious, cooking kale drastically lowers the amount of antioxidants and zinc contained in the kale, making raw kale a better option.

Bell peppers – Aside from the high content of vitamin C in bell peppers, they were found to contain an important antioxidant flavonoid called luteolin. Having multiple biological effects such as anti-inflammation, anti-allergy and anticancer, luteolin functions as either an antioxidant or a pro-oxidant biochemically[1]. Whether you choose green, orange, yellow or red bell peppers they present a complex array of nutrients that do everything from deter cancer, to protect the eyes from cataracts and macular degeneration later in life, to improving your skin and hair with its high value of vitamin E, lowering cholesterol, controlling diabetes and even help fend off certain aches and pains as it helps ease inflammation. Bell peppers also contain vitamin B6, which is essential for the health of the nervous system and helps renew cells.  Also high in folate and potassium that can help enhance muscle function and regulate blood pressure. All this in a low calorie package as one full cup is no more than 45 calories.

Choose Wisely: Raw or Cooked – Just eat them.
Here’s a short list of vegetables that can be eaten either raw or cooked, depending on your preference.

Celery – Celery is often thought of as a crunchy, low-cal vegetable goto for snacking when on a diet, but not necessarily a key part of any health support system. Well stand back as it’s time to rethink things. Recent research has greatly bolstered our knowledge about celery’s anti-inflammatory benefits, including its protection against inflammation in the digestive tract itself. In addition to well-known antioxidants like vitamin C and flavonoids, scientists have now identified at least a dozen other types of antioxidant nutrients in celery.

Broccoli – Here’s one of the vegetables that you can eat raw or cooked, depending on what you’re looking to benefit from. Studies indicate that heat damages and deactivates myrosinase, an enzyme in broccoli that helps cleanse the liver of carcinogens. This enzyme breaks down compounds found in broccoli that then help stave off the H. pylori bacteria that is responsible for stomach ulcers and other digestive disorders.

Yet while cooking broccoli reduces some of its vital nutrients, if not overcooked broccoli managed to maintain a significant amount of fiber, potassium, vitamin C, and calcium. Ironically the cooking process accentuated its folate levels as cooked broccoli has more folate than raw.

Cabbage – This is one that seems most controversial, so it’s believed if you are going to cook it to eat it as close to raw as possible. In other words only lightly cooked, such as by steaming or sautéing your cabbage quickly.  Eating it raw as in a homemade coleslaw or shredded into your salads is the better option. Cabbage can also be juiced, as mentioned, and fermented, which will provide your body with healthful amounts of beneficial bacteria, if certain starter cultures are used. Cabbage offers numerous antioxidants, vitamin K2, anti-inflammatory properties, anti-carcinogens as well as one of the strongest stimulants for the body to produce digest acids helping heal against ulcers and other digestive problems. While green or white cabbage are a valuable addition to any diet, eating the purple variety brings along brain-protecting anthocyanin pigments with its lively color.

Cook It! Cook It Real Good!
Keep in mind that cooking is crucial to our diets. It helps us digest food without expending huge amounts of energy. It softens food, such as cellulose fiber and raw meat, that our small teeth, weak jaws and digestive systems aren’t equipped to handle. While we might hear from raw foodists that cooking kills vitamins and minerals in food, while also denaturing enzymes that aid digestion, it turns out raw vegetables are not always healthier.

Here are a few foods whose nutritional value are of greater value when cooked. These include asparagus, mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, carrots and even celery.

Asparagus – Steaming that asparagus ignites its cancer-fighting potential.

Mushrooms – Heating mushrooms—whether you sauté, boil, grill, or roast them—brings out more muscle-building potassium.

Spinach – Have it cooked and you’ll absorb more calcium, iron, and magnesium.

Tomatoes – Surprised? When you eat tomatoes cooked, your body absorbs more of their cancer-fighting lycopene.

Carrots – Carrots are one of the best sources of carotene, which is a strong antioxidant. But carrots also contain other phenolic compounds that are also antioxidants. Researchers studying the effects of cooking on the antioxidant properties of carrots found that carrots (peeled or non-peeled) that were sliced and blanched (2 minutes or 20 minutes), cooked in cans at for 75 minutes and then stored for up to 4 weeks retained high levels of their antioxidant properties. The antioxidant power of the processed carrots was greater, on average 34% higher, than for raw carrots. During the first week of storage the antioxidant properties continued to climb, before declining over the next 3 weeks in storage. At the end of the 4 weeks the processed carrots still had more oxidative power than raw carrots.

Raw vegetables may be popular with many people, but this study shows that at least some processed and canned vegetables can be just as nutritious as raw ones. In areas where fresh produce is not available year round, or where frozen vegetables are not practical, canned vegetables are an ideal option.

Celery – More on this versatile veggie, because if you predominantly use celery in your soups or steamed as part of a meal, go ahead! Celery can withstand the cooking process without excessive loss of its phenol-based antioxidants. In a recent study, researchers compared the impact of steaming (10 minutes) versus boiling (10 minutes) versus blanching (3 minute submersion in boiling water) on the total phenolic antioxidant nutrients in celery. Both boiling and blanching resulted in substantial loss of these antioxidants, in the range of 38-41%. With steaming, however, 83-99% of these antioxidants were retained in the celery even after 10 minutes. While it seems that steaming is the preferred method of cooking vegetables, it’s great to see how nutrient-preserving steaming can be in the case of celery.

Red is the New Orange

Lycopene is a red pigment found predominantly in tomatoes and other rosy fruits such as watermelon, pink guava, red bell pepper and papaya. Several studies conducted in recent years have linked high intake of lycopene with a lower risk of cancer and heart attacks. It has been touted that lycopene is the new Vitamin C, and may even be a more potent antioxidant than vitamin C.

Various published studies found that cooking actually boosts the amount of lycopene in tomatoes. The level of one type of lycopene, cis-lycopene, in tomatoes rose 35 percent after being cooked for 30 minutes in one study. It was determined that the heat breaks down the plants’ thick cell walls and aids the body’s uptake of some nutrients that are bound to those cell walls, elevating the absorption levels of the lycopene.

A similar study showed that cooking carrots increases their level of beta-carotene. Beta-carotene belongs to a group of antioxidant substances called carotenoids, which give fruits and vegetables their red, yellow, and orange colorings. The body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A, which plays an important role in vision, reproduction, bone growth and regulating the immune system.

Balancing Out the Benefits

It should be noted that there is a small downside to cooking vegetables, as it can destroy the vitamin C content in foods. Although lycopene soars when tomatoes are cooked, it was noted that vitamin C levels declined in tomatoes that had been exposed to heat. This is because vitamin C is highly unstable and is easily degraded through oxidation and exposure to heat. Yet the reason most of seek to eat tomatoes when considering healthy choices is for its lycopene content, not necessarily for the vitamin C. This seems a worthy trade-off as vitamin C is prevalent in far more fruits and vegetables than is lycopene.

What One Study Giveth, Another Taketh Away
And while cooking carrots was found to increase carotenoid levels, another study found that it leads to a total loss of polyphenols, a group of chemicals found in raw carrots. Specific polyphenols have been shown to have antioxidant properties and may help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Leading us to the conclusion once again all things can be enjoyed in moderation. Make room on your plate for some cooked carrots as a side dish with a favorite meal, but don’t forget to include a few raw carrots on your snack plate as well to enjoy the benefits that raw carrots have to offer.

Comparing the healthfulness of raw and cooked food is complicated, and there are still many mysteries surrounding how the different molecules in plants interact with the human body. The bottom line is that adding veggies and fruits can always offer healthy pros with few cons to any healthy eating plan.