More on Nutrient Preservation

In yesterday's post titled, "Is Heat Destroying Your Food?", I shared with you how you might be sabotaging your efforts to eat well by over-heating your foods, destroying some of the essential nutrients naturally present in these foods. The nutrients I wrote about were the B Vitamins. Today, I want to take this same topic to the next level and give you even more tools to preserve the nutrient content of the healthful foods you are choosing.

As you learned in the previous article; heat, light, and air can destroy some essential nutrients. Already you know you can avoid this by simply adding more raw foods to your diet. Is that good enough? Maybe.

To preserve these volatile nutrients when cooking, you'll want to cook your food slowly at a reduced temperature.

As an example, my husband is notorious for turning our electric stove nearly all the way up. He'll boil water, then add the rice. He doesn't reduce the temperature but "quick cooks" the rice. This ultimately destroys those much needed B vitamins. (The moral of the story is quicker is not always better.)

Rice should be prepared as follows: bring your water to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer. Add rice. Cover, cook for thirty to forty minutes at a very low heat. Medium / low would be ideal. Turn off heat, and allow to sit for an additional five to ten minutes before serving. Voila - nice, perfectly done rice. (Rice should always be soaked at least an hour to remove phytic acid, drain and add fresh water to cook)


Other thoughts on this subject are:

• Store grains and oils in an air tight colored container out of direct sunlight
• to protect them from light, store vegetables in a breathable container in your refrigerator (they are alive, you know)
• Don't over heat, instead - cook or steam fruits and vegetables until just tender.
• shorten duration of cooking times for those that you can, ie. vegetables
• Serve fresh, raw vegetables with your meals
• Pass up the microwave use, of course Nuking your food is not going to help this effort! 

Enjoy your food, knowing you are getting the best nutrients out of it possible! 

In vibrant health,

Tammi