Why it's best to eat fresh
By savypat
@savypat (20216)
United States
November 9, 2008 1:26pm CST
This article caught my attention, because once again it shows why we need to eat our Vegetables raw as often as possible. Maybe you can pick up a hint or two.
For Cancer Protection - Fresh Is Best
By Kelley Herring
While some of us love the taste of broccoli, most of the time it's eaten for its health benefits. But new research suggests that if you cook it, almost all of the cancer-fighting nutrients are lost.
A recent study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that sulphoraphane - the primary cancer-fighting nutrient in broccoli - is significantly reduced during cooking. In fact, the bioavailability of sulforaphane was calculated to be 37 percent from the raw vegetable and only 3.4 percent from cooked broccoli.
So what option does that leave you with... raw broccoli crudites? On the contrary! There are plenty of delicious ways to enjoy raw broccoli. Make chopped salads with broccoli, buy broccosprouts and add them to your sandwiches, and fold tiny fresh florets into omelets to add delicious crunch and powerful protection.
I like the omelet idea myself
2 people like this
8 responses
@wunovakind2 (378)
• United States
9 Nov 08
Thank you for the facts, unfortunately, I'm not a huge fan of very raw vegetables. I suppose the exception would be Subway Sandwiches, but I know those don't *really* count. I tend to eat vegetables in soups and such. but hearing that it loses a lot of its nutrients vital to cancer protection is disheartening, so I guess I will try harder. Ah I like the ideas you have, and the omelet suggestion does sound appealing thanks.
2 people like this
@webeishere (36313)
• United States
10 Nov 08
You can alo steam or stir fry veggies and not lose all the nutrients etc they provide. Boiling and or frying them makes them lose the nutrients etc. Steaming etc will not lose all them.
HAPPY POSTINGS FROM GRANDPA BOB !!~
1 person likes this
@suspenseful (40193)
• Canada
10 Nov 08
I love broccoli, better fresh then cooked. I put it in salads, but that is all. I will have to find more raw broccoli recipes, like a slaw. I have not bought the sprouts yet, I guess they would be a bit more expensive and since there are just two of us, I would wonder how long to store them. That seems to be the problem. The stuff is good, but you need to have more than two people in the house or you pay more.
@webeishere (36313)
• United States
10 Nov 08
Each year I have a deecent sized garden.
I grow a variety of things in the gardens I have.
A lot of the things are eaten raw.
I had 6 brocholli this year and man did I ever get a lot from them all.
Stir fried veggies works as well as raw also.
Steaming veggies as opposed to boiling them keeps the nutrients in them also.
HAPPY POSTINGS FROM GRANDPA BOB !!~
1 person likes this
@creationsbyrobin (3071)
• United States
10 Nov 08
Thanks for sharing the article. I like the idea of adding it to salads and will try it. The one thing I'd like to add is, eating cooked brocoli and getting the 3.4% of the sulforpane is much better for you than eating a fast food cheeseburger. Just getting people to enjoy eating any kind of veggies is the most important part.
Great ideas of getting raw brocoli into our diets, I'm going to write these ideas down, right now!
1 person likes this
@jayyerex (224)
• Canada
10 Nov 08
I agree with everything that has been said here. The fresher the better. Our pre packaged society has lead to among other things, the obesity epidemic and diabetes. The sugar and sodium content in most processed foods is atrocious and quite frankly I am disgusted that anyone can put this kind of food on the market with any kind of good conscience. That however, is another matter altogether. So yes, fresh is best but I have another question that has been nagging at me for sometime and I would like to pose it to you and hear what you have to say. Given the mass production of fruits and vegetables, the pesticides and genetically modified organics that are being produced today, do you think that the fresh food that we are eating is less nutritious today than it was say 100 years ago? If that is in fact the case, what can we do about it? It is a fact that when you over farm any plot of land you leach out the nutrients in the soil and therefore the food that is produced has less of those nutrients in it. Has it gotten to the point now where we have to take a multi vitamin in order to make up for the short fall of nutrients in our "fresh" food? It's a tough problem with no easy solution. Tell me what you think!
@arunmails (3011)
• India
10 Nov 08
Hii... Savypat..... you have started a discussion which is more important...... Most of the people, keep the vegetables in the fridge for about 2 or 3 days.... and then they use that for cooking.... this is not good.....
1. you won't like the vegetable which gets dried, crushed, so you keep that in the firdge... by keeping the vegetables in the fridge, there will be no vitamins in that.... so, we must cook and eat the vegetables, when it is fresh....
@redkathy (3374)
• United States
9 Nov 08
Hey Pat I love broccoli. I have read about this in several articles and go back to grandma's kitchen, she knew what was good and healthy! Thanks for a most informative discussion post. I haven't had the broccosprouts, I will have to give thaose a try!
1 person likes this
@hildas (3031)
•
9 Nov 08
Thank you for this piece of information. I love raw cauliflower and broccoli, so I am very pleased about hearing this all. I do like broccoli cooked also and so does my children, but I will try to encourage it raw to them along with salad and things. My youngest daughter loves omeletes so I will try this recipe on her. Many thanks for posting this up here. Knowing that cooking does this to this vegetable was all new news to me. Cheers.
