Does Nuking Your Food Destroy Nutrients?
By Better Health Research Team • Aug 23rd, 2010 • Category: Health E-Hint
When time is tight after work or during the day, you may quickly enjoy heating or reheating meals in the microwave. But do you lose precious nutrients from your foods when you nuke them in the microwave? Most likely, according to Sanjay Gupta, M.D., medical correspondent for CNN News, who answers this question with help from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Unfortunately exposing food to any sort of heat—broiling, grilling, steaming or microwaving—can deplete the nutrients contained in the meat, fruit or vegetable. The key is to limit the amount of time you cook foods to retain the most vitamins and minerals. Gupta provided these suggestions:
- Use as little water as possible when cooking or boiling vegetables or fruits since water soluble vitamins and minerals might be diluted. Steaming is a healthier solution.
- The longer you cook foods, the less nutrients are retained so avoid cooking on extremely high temperatures for extended periods of time.
- Exposure to air destroys vitamin A, C, E, K and B vitamins. To avoid this, cut vegetables and fruits in larger chunks so less surface area is exposed and cooks quickly.
- Microwaving can be useful every now and then since it exposes foods to less water, air or heat for shorter cooking periods.
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