Vitamins & Cooking

If you're making fruits, vegetables and other nutrient-rich foods a part of your daily diet, you know you're doing your body a big favor. But you may be unknowingly losing precious vitamins and minerals just by preparing and cooking your foods. Vitamins can be destroyed by heat, water and light, so it's important to choose your cooking method carefully when preparing vitamin-rich foods.

Methods to Avoid

Frying, particularly deep-frying, with its high temperatures, destroys vitamins easily. Baking and roasting destroy nutrients the longer the food cooks and the higher the cooking temperature. Boiling foods causes them to lose a great deal of nutrients because of the combination of high temperature and relatively large amounts of water.

Best-Bet Methods

Microwaving is a good choice, because cooking time is usually short and no water is used. Steaming is another good choice, because foods do not sit directly in water. Stir-frying is another acceptable method, because food is exposed to heat for a very short time, although temperatures are usually high.

Stable and Unstable Vitamins

Water-soluble vitamins--thiamine, niacin, biotin, folate, and vitamins B6, B12 and C--will leach out of foods when put in water. These vitamins can be destroyed by heat: thiamine, pantothenic acid, folate and vitamin C. Fat-soluble vitamins, such as vitamins A, D, K and E, are stable in water. Riboflavin, niacin, and vitamins D, K, E and B12 are all stable under heat exposure.

Preservation Tips

To preserve the greatest amount of vitamins possible, follow these tips:
Cook and eat foods within a few days of buying them.
Eat fruits and vegetables raw when possible.
Wash but do not soak vegetables and fruits.
Cook foods using the quickest method possible.
Cook foods with a method that uses little or no water.
When you must boil vegetables, use a minimum amount of water, do not put the vegetables in the water until it comes to a boil, cover the pot to speed cooking time and use the vitamin-rich leftover water for other cooking purposes--try adding it to soups, sauces or gravies.

Nutrients in Meat

While fruits and vegetables are top dietary sources of vitamins, don't forget that vitamins in beef, poultry, fish and pork can also be destroyed by heat and water. Keep these cooking rules in mind when preparing all your foods.

References

• Health Central
• Beyond Vegetarianism
• Baylor College of Medicine

Resources

• Rutgers University