Are raw vegetables or cooked vegetables better to eat

Is it better to cook vegetables or eat them raw??

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Related Questions Answered on Y!Answers

Nutrient wise, is it better to eat vegetables raw or cooked?

Q:

A: Nutrient-wise, it is generally better to eat anything raw than cooked (veggies, fruits, dairy, meats even). However, some methods of cooking don’t harm food as much, some methods do make absorbing other nutrients easier, and to be honest, many people find it easier on the palate and the digestion to not eat everything raw, although others swear by raw diets, where nothing in the diet is cooked at all. Couple of things to keep in mind:1. All cooking methods reduce nutrient levels in vegetables to some degree. Many vitamins are sensitive to heat exposure. 2. Water used for cooking can dissolve and wash away even more of those vitamins. (Drinking that water, mashing it into cooked veggies, or using it as soup stock would be ways to preserve those vitamins.)3. Microwave cooking is a good way to preserve nutrients in vegetables because it requires only a minimal amount of water and cooking times are very short. Pressure cooking and steaming are also good methods – all better than boiling.4. Avoid washing or cutting vegetables before you’re ready to use them.5. Rinse quickly rather than soak.6. Use a sharp knife when cutting fresh vegetables; bruising vegetables can deplete them of valuable vitamins.7. Cut off only the inedible parts of vegetables. Sometimes the best nutrients are found in the skin (or just below the skin and in the leaves).8. Avoid peeling vegetables such as potatoes and beets until after cooking.9. If you must boil vegetables, cook them only until crisp and with only a small amount of water.10. Use a lid to avoid steaming away precious vitamins.11. Avoid cutting vegetables up into small pieces. Prepare them whole, if possible.

Do you prefer raw or cooked vegetables?

Q: For me, I mostly like them better raw, but then again there are some vegetables that should only be eaten when cooked. What about you?

A: This really depends on the vegetable. I like cooked mushrooms but not raw ones. Carrots, on the other hand, I like whether they are raw or cooked.

Cooked and raw vegetables. What’s better?

Q: Now most of the people say that the best way to eat vegetables is to eat them raw, because they loose most of their vitamins after they’ve been boiled. Now is this true because I’ve also heard that when you boil vegetables, they loose the harmful stuff that might be in them, they loose some vitamins, but the vitamins are able to absorb much easier. How many percent of the vitamins do they loose? And what about enzymes? What about stemed veggies?

A: Actually, the answer is to eat both cooked and raw vegetables. There are many nutrients, vitamins and antioxidants that become more readily absorbed with the application of heat, because the vegetables have a nearly impervious cell wall that needs to be broken down first. For example, you absorb only 5% of the carotenoids in a carrot when eating it raw, but that number more than triples when it is lightly cooked. With broccoli, important cancer preventative enzyme called indole is enhanced and made more readily available to the body by the cooking process, but another cancer fighting enzyme called myrosinase is destroyed when broccoli is steamed. So to get the benefits of all of the enzymes, antioxidants, etc, you should eat both raw and cooked broccoli. Also, you’ll retain more nutrients if you do not boil the vegetables. Extended cooking allows more of the essential vitamins and antioxidants to leech out. Steaming is better, so is stir-frying or sauteing. The exception, of course, being making a soup or stew, since you’ll be eating the liquid the vegetables boiled in as well as the vegetable. Serve it with a salad and you are golden.