The #1 Healthiest Way To Cook Your Veggies

Chances are, you've read a sensational story or circulated a chain email about how microwaves zap nutrients from food. The truth is microwaving may be the best  of all cooking methods when it comes to preserving nutrients. Why care? Because many of us are overcooking our veggies and losing key nutrients as a result, according to a new survey.
The National Brassica Survey found that most Americans cook broccoli for 10 minutes or longer, a length of time that destroys the veggie's rich stores of a detoxifying nutrient called glucoraphanin. To keep this powerful compound intact, the report says, we should cook broccoli for just 3 to 5 minutes. The takeaway: broccoli, like most veggies, keeps more nutrients when it's cooked for the shortest amount of time possible. And how can you cook crisp-tender broccoli in just 3 minutes? You guessed it: the microwave.

Unlike a regular oven, which heats the air around food, a microwave heats the molecules of the food itself. It produces microwaves, a type of electromagnetic radiation that passes right through materials like glass and plastic, but is absorbed by the water molecules in food. These waves cause those water molecules to vibrate, which creates heat in a shorter amount of time, helping to keep nutrients intact. (Looking to overhaul your diet? Learn how to feed your healthy stomach bacteria and lose weight for life with The Good Gut Diet.)

Microwaves also cook food at relatively low temperatures and without a large amount of water. These are important factors, too, since nutrients are destroyed in high heats and can leach out in water. Take, for example, a potato, which is a good source of vitamin C. If you boil it, vitamin C would leach into the cooking water. If you roast it for a half hour at 400ºF, the high oven temp and long cooking time would also degrade vitamin C, which is especially sensitive to heat. But if you stab it a few times with a fork and pop it in the microwave, just a few minutes later, it'll be cooked through and ready to eat without ever touching water.
Though there are a few exceptions (nutrients like lycopene, beta-carotene, and some polyphenols actually become more bioavailable when cooked), a quick turn in the microwave is hard to beat. In fact, a recent Harvard Medical School report plainly states that microwaving "keeps more vitamins and minerals than almost any other cooking method."

That said, just about every expert agrees that, as long as you're eating a balanced diet with lots of veggies, there's no need to split hairs over cooking methods. "Selecting a variety of nutrient-dense foods is the most important thing you can do," says Bradley Bolling, a food scientist at University of Wisconsin-Madison.


source: http://www.prevention.com/food/healthiest-veggie-cooking-method