Extract The Most Vitamins From What You Eat

If you eat the right food, it does not mean that you necessarily get the vitamins it contains. Food processing, storage, and cooking can easily undermine even the best intentions regarding nutrition. To get the most from what you eat (not to mention what you spend), keep the following tips in mind:

• Wash but do not soak fresh vegetables if you hope to use the B and C vitamins they contain.
• Refrain from what is more convenient for you and make your salads only when ready to eat them. Fruits and vegetables cut and left to stand lose vitamins.
• Use a sharp knife when cutting or chopping fresh vegetables, because vitamins A and C are reduced when the vegetable tissues are bruised.
• If you do not plan to eat fresh fruits or vegetables for several days, it is better to buy frozen ones. The vitamin content of well-frozen green beans will be higher than those you kept in the refrigerator for a week.
• The outer green leaf of the salad, although it is rougher than the inner one, has a higher content of calcium, iron, and vitamin A.
• Do not thaw frozen vegetables before cooking.
• Broccoli leaves have a higher value of Vitamin A than the bud or stem.

• There are more vitamins in converted and half-cooked rice than in glazed rice, and brown rice is more nutritious than white rice.
• Frozen foods that you can cook in the bags in which they are packed contain more vitamins than ordinary frozen foods, and all frozen foods are preferable to canned foods.
• Cooking in copper vessels can destroy vitamin C, folic acid, and Vitamin E.
• The best containers for preserving nutrients during cooking are made of stainless steel, glass, and enamel. (Iron dishes can give you the benefit of this mineral, but it will come at the expense of vitamin C.)
• The shortest cooking time and the smallest amount of water are the least harmful to nutrients.
• Milk in glass containers can cause the loss of riboflavin, as well as vitamins A and D if it is not kept away from light. (various types of bread exposed to light can also lose nutrients.)
• Quite brown, crusted, and overcooked foods have fewer vitamins than others.
• To get the most vitamins from potatoes, bake them and cook them in their skins.
• Use water in which you cook vegetables for soups, meat juices for sauces, and canned fruit syrups for sweets.
• Refrain from using any baking soda when cooking vegetables, if you want to use their thiamin and vitamin C.
• Put vegetables and fruits in the refrigerator as soon as you bring them home from the market.