There’s been a lot of hype about raw food in the past couple of years. But raw is NOT always better!
Here are a few examples of foods that contain nutrients that become more bio-available (effective) by cooking:
Tomatoes. Study after study has shown that cooking tomatoes into a sauce, salsa or stew improves the absorption of lycopene. This nutrient is found in tomatoes and a couple of pink-fleshed fruits. Lycopene is an member of the carotenoid family, a group of anti-oxidant nutrients that protect cells from damage from various stressors. So go ahead and enjoy your store-bought vegetable cocktail and your tomato juice. Besides containing more lycopene and potassium, they taste far better than raw tomato juice does!
Kale and collard greens. These green, tough-leaved leafy vegetables are packed with calcium and magnesium, but don’t expect to absorb any if you are blending it into smoothies. The reason is that dark green vegetables contain oxalates, which are natural chemical compounds that just happen to bind to iron and calcium. The best way to remove oxalates? Cooking with water! You don’t have to boil the kale or collards to death, or at all, actually. Instead, throw them in a soup, or steam them.
Spinach. It’s got oxalates. If you are looking to this green leafy as a source of iron, you need to steam it to access this mineral.
It’s About Balance
Raw food proponents will argue that heating food above 118 degrees Fahrenheit damages the food’s enzymes and some of its vitamins. While it’s true that cooking diminishes the vitamin C content of the food, so does freezing (those frozen fruits are NOT as nutritious as they were when fresh). There are plenty of fruits and vegetables to eat to get the full spectrum of nutrients for health. So go ahead—it’s OK to cook your vegetables–just don’t use a microwave to do it (more on that later). And DO eat those salads! Neither all raw nor all cooked is optimal, so balance them on your plate and you will get the best of both worlds.