Cook or Raw Veggies?

My MIL is all about vitamins and cooking things corectly. She said:

- You get different nutrients from cooked carrotts than you do from raw carrots, so you need to eat BOTH cooked and raw.

Perhaps the same thing goes for other veggies?

When I cooked my son's own babyfood, I went to www.wholesomebabyfood.com and they talk about how you lose vitamins in the water if you boil them, so the vitamins are in the water and not in the veg that you eat. So if you boil food, either let some/all of that water evaporate or use the water in a soup so that the vitamins don't go down the drain.

Hope this helps.

Unless anyone is a registered dietician, we're all probably guessing here.

Raw is usually most nutrient. However, flash frozen (most frozen vegetables) are actually more nutrient because they're frozen almost immediately after being picked vs. weeks for fresh vegetables. Canned usually are least healthy as they're loaded with sodium or sugars for preservation.

Here's a link to the American Dietetic Association to verify from the most knowledgeable source:
http://www.eatright.org/
http://www.eatright.org/search.aspx?search=vegetables

Yup. Some nutritents are volatile and we lose them when cooking, some are too difficult to digest and so we don't get them unless we cook.

Local hospitals usually have nutritionists which can go through a whole list of veggies and other foods and ways to prepare them so that you get the most out of them. It really does depend per each type.

There is no "best" way for ALL.

Every vegetable is different. But here's a couple I know about. The vitamin A in carrots is more potent when the carrots are sauted lightly in oil. The vitamin C content of cabbage is increased when fermented into sauerkraut. If I remember correctly lightly cooked cabbage, broccoli, and kale are better, but once the color starts to fade it's been cooked too long.

I'm pretty sure that all veggies retain their nutrients better when raw. Of course, it is really not possible to eat certain veggies raw (eggplant, potatoes, squash, rhubarb, corn, just off the top of my head). I have read that steaming them or sauteeing them is better than boiling them - although a quick par-boil may not be bad for them. I think if you boil them for a long time, they lose pretty much all of their nutrients. Lately we've been using our barbeque to cook our veggies - yum!

Steaming preserves more nutrients than boiling as some one stated. Also for little ones, the softer texture of cooked is better.

I wouldn't boil them, that's the quickest way to rid the veggies of the nutrients so if you cook them, I would steam, roast, sautee or grill them. I think it is best to eat a mix of raw and cooked, but I don't know what the actual nutritional information is.

I would think steaming is better than boiling for most veggies...

i steam my kids' veggies.