Foods That People Typically Eat WRONG!

A healthy diet indeed involves choosing healthy foods, but you may be surprised that the very form in which you eat the food or the way you cook it sometimes also plays a key role.

The most typical examples of healthy food that is often not eaten “correctly” are fruits and vegetables. Namely, very often the peel is peeled off and thrown away, although proper washing can minimize the danger of eating these parts of fresh food, which usually contain most of the micronutrients, i.e. minerals and vitamins.

Proper cooking is also very important. In general, cooking food improves its digestibility and increases the absorption of most nutrients. In addition, most cooking methods are fatal to pathogenic microorganisms that can harm us. Of course, not frying, but methods such as stewing, boiling, baking, etc.

As just one small example of increasing digestibility, we can take the proteins from the boiled egg, which are 180% more digestible than those from the fresh one.

However, improper cooking can reduce the amount of several key nutrients:

• water-soluble vitamins: vitamin C and all B vitamins
• fat-soluble vitamins: vitamins A, D, E and K
• minerals: above all, potassium, magnesium, sodium, and calcium

Although we often hear that fresh food is always, without exception, better to be eaten as it is, than in a cooked form, below we will list some typical examples, where it is healthier to eat fresh food cooked.

10 examples of healthy food products, which if you eat/drink/choose them correctly (in the correct form or correct preparation), would be even healthier:

1. Replace foods derived from white flour with foods from whole-grain flour

Starchy food should be our basic source of energy, but starchy food is also white bread, white pastries, pasta, etc.

However, there is a huge difference between products derived from white flour and those from whole grains. Integral flours contain the entire micronutrient composition of grains (vitamins, minerals, and other useful phytochemicals) and, in addition, have a much lower glycemic index, that is, they have much more vegetable fiber.

Simply replacing all white flour products with whole grains can have surprising health benefits in the long run. Research shows that this simple replacement greatly reduces the risk of obesity, which is a significant risk factor for several diseases (there are other benefits, such as healthier microflora, etc.).

And wholegrain pasta can be healthier. How? If they are eaten “al dente”, that is, cooked for a shorter time, since with prolonged cooking, their glycemic index increases, which means that their starch will be broken down faster in the body and, consequently, blood glucose levels will experience sudden peaks.

2. Eat cooked tomatoes more often

The powerful antioxidant lycopene found in tomatoes has fascinating beneficial effects on the body. It is important to say that it is more available to the body if tomatoes are eaten cooked, for a short time at higher temperatures. Additionally, adding a little olive oil will allow for better absorption of some important healthy fat-soluble phytonutrients. Read more about tomatoes here.

3. Eat the steamed broccoli!

With other preparation methods, you destroy the beneficial components of broccoli, primarily vitamin C, chlorophyll and proteins. In addition, be careful not to overdo it with steam cooking, the shorter the preparation (until softening), the more nutrients are preserved. Broccoli goes best in combination with a little olive oil, sea salt, and lemon juice. Read more about this superfood here.

4. Tap water is usually a better choice than bottled water

Perhaps this will surprise you, but tap water is completely sanitary (due to the addition of precisely determined non-risky amounts of chlorine) just like bottled water, but unlike it, it has a richer mineral composition. But when the water is very “hard”, it is a good idea to use a filter.

5. Eat more fermented foods

In our tradition is the preparation of fermented food (sauerkraut, cucumbers, pickles, beets, etc.), but you probably haven’t heard that this kind of food is often more useful than its fresh form. It is due to the probiotic value that the food receives after the fermentation process. Probiotics are beneficial bacteria that can greatly assist in maintaining the balance of naturally occurring human intestinal microflora.

6. Eat carrots, spinach, cauliflower, zucchini and cabbage cooked

In this way, you allow better absorption of antioxidants, such as carotenoids and ferulic acid, than if you eat these products in fresh form. In addition, with the heat treatment, you also enable the neutralization of some anti-nutrients from the mentioned vegetables and thus improve the absorption of their mineral content. For example, the iron and calcium from spinach.

For better absorption of fat-soluble vitamin A from carrots, it is good to eat it in combination with a little olive oil or some other healthy fat.

Cooking should be enough to soften the vegetables, prolonged cooking is also not good.

7. Garlic is better eaten fresh because of the allicin

High temperatures break down allicin, a component considered the most beneficial in garlic.

8. Fruits are better to eat fresh than in smoothies, and incomparably better than drinking any fruit juices

Even those commercial juices that (at least it says) are 100% fruit, are not healthy food. This is because they are a caloric bomb from simple sugars, and the micronutrient composition is quite weak. They create sugar spikes and short-term sudden drops, after which you are hungry. So apart from being a calorie bomb, they are also hunger instigators. The same applies to smoothie drinks that you prepare yourself.

Of course, on some occasions, they are also a good option, for example in the morning when we need more energy, before exercise, if we lack certain micronutrients, etc.

So, it is almost always a better choice to reach for fresh, whole fruit, that way you will consume incomparably fewer calories, more vegetable fibers, and probably more micronutrients (minerals and vitamins) and you will feel fuller and more satisfied.

9. Do not cook already canned and treated vegetables and legumes

They are already suitable for consumption and have excellent absorption in digestion. Additional cooking can damage their texture, taste and nutritional value.