Arming You With Ways To Let Food Be Your Medicine!

You have heard me say “Let food be your medicine.” I have listed a few tips to help you start the healing process with food. Watch this section for exciting upcoming events regarding nutrition for the entire family!

It is often asked if food lose their nutrients when they are cooked. Surprisingly, cooking certain foods actually makes their nutrients more readily available. Here are some tips to remember. You might want to cut this out and put it on your refrigerator as a reference.

1. Using heating, soaking, fermentation, seeds, nuts, and legumes can increase the availability of phytonutrients and decrease the content of plant nutrients that are not beneficial, like phytate.

2. Boiling cruciferous vegetables in water inactivates the enzyme that produces anti-cancer compounds.

3. The antioxidant content increases in the following foods when they are cooked: carrots, spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, red cabbage, green and red peppers, potatoes, and tomatoes.

4. Overall, steaming is the preferred method of cooking since it results in the biggest increase in antioxidant content.

5. Peeling away skins of apples and cucumbers reduces their antioxidant content significantly.

6. Don’t pre-soak vegetables before cooking to make them soft as you will lose nutrients in the water.

Information provided by IFM