Healthy Cooking Methods

No cooking method is necessarily wrong, but some are better for your health than others.

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of some of our cooking methods.

Frying: Frying does a good job of destroying Vitamin A. To retain Vitamin A use a form of mild cooking. Also, according to Dr. Ted Gansler, director of Medical Content for the American Cancer Society, eating excessive amounts of grilled meat or chicken can increase your risk of developing cancer. This is also true for pan-fried meats at high temperatures.

Charcoal Broiling: Like frying hamburgers on a grill, when charcoal broiling the charcoal you burned and its smoke may cause potentially cancer-causing substances to form in and around the meat as it is cooked.

To help with this problem, cook only lean meats because the fat dripping into the fire is potentially what forms the cancer-causing chemical. Also, place the meat on foil and not right next to the coals. And remember, as with frying, cook on low temperatures and do not burn.

Baking: When baking bread, pastries, etc. take them out of the oven as soon as the top or crust is light brown. The less they are exposed to heat the better for retention of vitamins. For fish, baking is a good way to go. Nutrients and flavor are better retained in fish when baked.

Steaming: Steaming of vegetables allows them to cook quickly and you use no fat. Protein, vitamin and mineral losses are much less with steaming than with boiling.

Stewing: If you keep the heat low and cook slowly, you keep almost all of the nutrients when you use the liquid that the meat and vegetables were cooked in.

Boiling: Boiling may be the worst of the lot when it comes to the loss of nutrients, such as Vitamin C, B, potassium and iron. To help reduce these losses use small amounts of water and keep the boiling time short, don’t put the vegetables in until the water is boiling and never add baking soda to the cooking water. If possible, try to salvage some of the nutrients by using the boiling water to make gravies, sauces or soups.

Crock-Pot Cooking: Vitamins that help protect the nerves, such as thiamine, riboflavin and niacin, are lost into the liquids with the long cooking times of a crock-pot.

To help retain some of your nutrients, consider cooking your meat or beans in the crock-pot and then cooking your vegetables separate and adding them at the last minute.

Roasting: If you do not overcook, you will lose less of the B Vitamins when roasting than with most other cooking methods.

Stir-Frying: With stir-frying you can retain more nutrients because you can cook meat and vegetables more quickly and use much less oil than skillet frying.

In summary, our nutrient-wasting cooking methods are charcoal broiling, frying, deep frying and boiling. And our nutrient-saving cooking methods are stir-frying, steaming, roasting, broiling, stewing and pressure cooking.