Food is quite common for us. Sometimes we take a long time to prepare it, sometimes we buy it in a hurry at the nearest supermarket to calm our roaring stomach. Sometimes we burn our tongues on it and sometimes we can't feel our mouths from how cold it is.
But if you've ever stirred a sauce and stood over the stove for a long time......some of the substances are being lost with the steam fogging your glasses? If you look up the nutritional values of meat on Uncle Google, will it still be as nutrient-packed after you take it out of the oven with that perfectly browned crust?
That's what we're going to look at in today's article. What about heat treatments of food, how they do or don't change the nutritional composition and how to prepare food in a way that preserves the most nutrients and gets the most out of it.
Types of food preparation
Let's now look together at the different types of food preparation and how the nutritional composition of food changes during preparation.
1. Microwave
There is a lot of talk about the microwave oven, and unfortunately not all of it is good. However, it is a relatively gentle way of preparing food because it is exposed to heat for a relatively short period of time. for a very short period of time, so the food has no chance of losing vital nutrients for the body.
2. Baking
Up to 50% of vitamin C is lost during baking. It is recommended to bake food up to 200°C, because at higher temperatures the amount of substances that are hygienically harmful increases. For example, potatoes change from carbohydrates to simple sugars, which changes their glycaemic index.
3. Frying
Let's face it, salty fried foods are the ones we're most tempted by, but they're not exactly #healthylifestylefood.
The most important thing about frying is the oil you use.Canola and olive oil seem to be the most suitable, as they have the best oxidizing stability compared to sunflower oil, which has low oxidation stability and lower heat resistance. Not to denigrate frying so much, compared to other types of preparation, it preserves vitamin C quite well and increases the fibre content of the potatoes.
4. Grilling
A summer without a good barbecue would not be a summer without a good barbecue. However, grilling is not a preparation method that we can include often. Up to 40% of vitamin B is lost and the fat drips into the firethe polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that are carcinogenic to our bodies.
5. Cooking
Cooking is one of the best preparations we can choose. It is the best way to absorb nutrients from food. Although cooking kills some bacteria, on the other hand, the most degraded are vitamins A, D, E, K or vitamin C.
For example, fish does not lose the omega-3 fatty acids that are so important for the body during cooking . that ensure the proper functioning of the brain, the heart or the immune system. The greatest loss of nutrients occurs during the cooking process, so it is advisable to cook food only for the necessary length of time.
- It is advisable to cook meat only in boiling water, in which the meat will retract and retain important nutrients.
- To preserve the greatest amount of vitamin C, it is ideal to cook all fruits, vegetables and potatoes in water, so that they retain the nutrients they need. to prevent leaching of minerals and possible oxidation.
- It is advisable to peel and cut all ingredients after cooking, as cuttingThis means that cutting and slicing deprives the food of important nutrients that should be obtained from it.
6. Preparation by steaming
One of the most gentle ways in which you can prepare food. It preserves the most nutrients and important substances for the body. There is only 10-20% loss.
7. Frying
Frying may seem like a very inappropriate option at first glance, but surprisingly, during a stir-fryFrying preserves a fair amount of vitamin C and increases the fibre content. This produces 'resistant starch', a type of starch that passes through the digestive tract unchanged, reducing appetite and lowering blood sugar.
On the other hand, omega-3 fatty acids are lost during the process and are easily affected by high temperatures.
Preserving nutrients in food
1. Preserving vitamins
Some of the relatively stable vitamins that are retained in food are vitamins D, E, B2 or B6 and the least stable are folic acid, vitamins B12, vitamins K or vitamins A. When cooking, try to stir the food as little as possible, as oxygen breaks down fat-soluble vitamins and so you deplete yourself of other nutrients.
2. Preserving fats
During prolonged high temperatures, there is a great loss of unsaturated fatty acids and oxidation of cholesterol. Above 300°C, antinutritional and toxic substances are formed.
3. Preservation of proteins
Protein is an important building block for our body and tissue repair. High temperatures lead to impaired digestibility and loss of lysine, which plays a key role in the formation of collagen, which serves as a building block for our skin or connective tissues.
Heat treatment makes them more digestible for us, especially those of plant origin, due to the better availability of amino acids compared to animal sources. They improve the digestibility of the food, but on the other hand, they can, for example, produce harmful substances when burnt.
4. Can I use protein in baking and cooking?
Protein is perhaps the most used supplement in today's fitness world. But what about during baking? Does it lose its nutritional value when we add it to our favourite buns?
Protein will still be a source of protein, but it will lose the ability to absorb substances such as immunoglobins, which neutralize viruses and bacteria in the body, giveor lactoferrin, which facilitates the uptake of iron into the body, or beta-lactoglobulin, which lowers blood pressure. The protein will not act antibacterially, anticancer or positively affect liver disease.
The effect of heat is to break down the protein structure, resulting in a loss of biological effects. Protein will therefore still be a source of protein, but most of its health benefits will be lost. Generally protein is digested in the stomach by the enzyme pepsin, where it continues on to the small intestine where it is broken down. As such, proteins only act in the gastrointestinal tract, so the effects of nutrients on our bodies do not show up as much.
Read also:
- How much protein to take daily?
- What protein to choose?
- The best proteins currently on the market (rankings)
Heat or raw food?
Now you might be thinking that the best thing to do is to stop cooking and start eating raw? Not really. Everything has its pros and cons.
Cooking ensures the destruction of toxins, healthiness or reduces contaminants. On the other hand, it can destroy important substances and therefore reduce the nutritional value of individual foods. The main factors that influence nutrient preservation are temperature, oxygen, light, metals, pH, leaching of substances into water and storage.
Advocates of raw food, on the other hand, stress the fact that unprocessed food retains the most nutrients, is quicker to arrive at theIt is faster to prepare and more economical, but contains naturally toxic micro-organisms that are not destroyed by heat, such as E-Coli or Salmonella.
The advantage of cooked vegetables is the greater availability of beta-carotene, which reduces heart disease, as well as lutein, which has a positive effect on prostate disease. The following vegetables demonstrate that sometimes it is advisable to prepare them raw and others cooked:
- Broccoli - raw contains up to 3 times more sulforaphane, which is an anti-cancer agent
- Cabbage - cooked serves as a cancer preventative
- Onions and garlic have anti-cancer effects
- Asparagus- cooked asparagus has higher availability of vitamin A, C, E
- Mushrooms - cooked degrade agaritin, a potential carcinogen and are a better antioxidant
- Carrots - cooked contain more betacarotene
Ten tips for the end
- Wash fruits and vegetables
- Don't use baking soda (it destroys vitamin C)
- Do not refreeze thawed food
- Keep food mixing to a minimum
- Do not cook food for unnecessarily long periods of time
- Bake at lower temperatures
- Soak legumes ahead of time (unsoaked legumes contain more toxins)
- Do not eat burnt food
- Use stainless steel cookware (metals accelerate oxidation)
- Eat the finished food as soon as possible (the vitamin C content decreases in the air)
Sources:
DOSTALOVÁ, J. What happens to food during cooking. 2008
How cooking food affects the final nutrient content. Available from https://cs.medlicker.com/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1798444/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2081985
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3551098/
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/NFS-11-2012-0123/full/html
Fitness food for the day (video):
Why can you trust us?
Hey! Hey! I'm Mirek and I've been working at World Fitness almost since the beginning, except for a small break. But before that I lived only in the gym for a few years, doing deadlifts and power triathlon, going to competitions and winning a few medals.
Probably the one I value the most is the national record in the WUAP federation. But besides working out, I was also interested in food and supplements, I liked to enjoy my free timeI used to read different researches and professional books in my free time to know as much as possible.