Some people swear by raw food, others only tolerate vegetables when they are cooked. But which type of preparation is the healthiest: boiling, frying, steaming or simply enjoying raw? It depends!
According to the German Society for Nutrition (DGE), we should eat at least three servings of vegetables a day. One portion is the size of the palm of your hand, which means an average of around 400 grams of vegetables per day for adults. But in what form should we eat tomatoes, peppers, spinach or kohlrabi?
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Vegetables: Are they healthier raw or cooked?
Cooked vegetables are generally easier to digest than raw vegetables. If raw vegetables cause you indigestion, you should therefore eat more cooked vegetables – especially in the evening to guarantee a good night’s sleep. Aside from digestibility, however, both raw and cooked vegetables can have health benefits. Many types of vegetables contain vitamins that are heat-labile , i.e. are lost when cooking or frying. This includes, for example, vitamin C, which is found in large quantities in peppers and broccoli in particular. On the other hand, peppers also contain beta-carotene– the precursor of vitamin A – which is only made available to us by heating. The situation is similar with carrots, which contain the valuable secondary plant substance lycopene in addition to beta-carotene . So what can you do to get as many nutrients as possible?
In order to tap into as many of the healthy ingredients in vegetables as possible, you should increasingly resort to gentle cooking methods. Instead of cooking broccoli, carrots, or peppers at high temperatures for 15 minutes or more, consider steaming them or using a steamer . Alternatively, you can toss the vegetables in a pan or wok for a few minutes and sauté them lightly . The more gentle preparation prevents you from losing too much vitamin C and vitamins B1, B2 and B6 . They also break down the cell structure of vegetables to reveal hidden ingredients like beta-carotene.
You should always cook these vegetables
However, you should always cook some types of vegetables. For example, potatoes or legumes such as beans are only edible when cooked or baked, as they otherwise contain harmful substances such as lectins. You can find out here which other varieties are healthier when cooked than raw: Vegetables – these three are healthier when cooked than raw >>
Otherwise, you should eat both raw vegetables, eg in the form of salads, and cooked vegetables every day in order to provide your body with as many healthy ingredients and secondary plant substances as possible.
dr Riedl recommends 500 grams of vegetables a day
Nutrition Doc Dr. Matthias Riedl ( @drmatthiasriedl) has on 19.5. answered your burning questions about weight loss frustration on our Instagram account ( @vital_magazin ). From minute 17:40 he talks about the health benefits of up to 500 grams of vegetables a day and what a healthy evening meal looks like. Would you like to make your diet permanently healthier? Dr. Riedl’s ” myFoodDoctor ” nutritional app , the basic version of which is even free.
