What Cooking Method Gives You The Most Nutritional Value From Your Food?

What we eat is one of the biggest contributing factors to living a healthy life. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, nutrition is at the forefront of success; you don’t see too many professional athletes eating doughnuts and you certainly don’t feed infants candy bars.

Odds are that you’re not a pro athlete or an infant, but you are probably very conscious about what goes into your body and want to maximize the nutritional value of the food you put into your body . What you might not know is that the nutritional values of food changes depending on it’s preparation method, eg. how they’re cooked, are they processed, etc.

let’s take a step back and quickly define the term nutritional value so we’re all on the same page.  Nutritional value is a qualitative descriptor of the foods you eat, and refers to the types and amounts of nutrients it contains; in particular micronutrients like vitamins and minerals, and the macronutrients profiles of proteins, carbs, and fats.  Different preparation methods will change the nutritional value of foods in various ways.  This blog post will tell you what the best cooking method is to get the most nutritional value from your food.  It will also touch on how the nutritional value of your food is affected by different cooking methods.

For those of you that just want the “coles notes,” version here your answer:

All cooking methods affect the nutritional value of our foods.  The cooking method that best retains nutrients, and therefore would promote the highest nutritional value of the food, is one that: cooks quickly, uses lower temperatures, and uses as little liquid as possible.

Of all of the cooking methods out the available, this means the Microwave is the one of the best ways to retain your food’s vitamins and minerals!  Yes, despite what you may have thought and what the mainstream media might suggest, when we look at all of these methods with a scientific lense the answer is clear.  And no, microwaves don’t cause dangerous radiation compounds in your food; but you should use microwavable-safe containers or you could be leaching plastics int your food.

For those of you that want more detailed information, read on.

Before we analyze the cooking methods, here’s what you need to know about Vitamins & Minerals in regards to how they can be “lost” from said food:

  • Vitamins D, E, A, and K are fat soluble; this means they dissolve and are stored in fat.  Cooking methods that promote the loss of fat will promote the loss of these vitamins.
  • Vitamins B (B1, B2, B3, B6, Folate, B12, Biotin) and C are water soluble; this means they dissolve and are stored in water.  Cooking methods that use water, or promote the loss of water from the food (eg. juices from steak on the barbeque), will promote the loss of these vitamins.
  • Minerals (the main ones are Potassium, Magnesium, Sodium, and Calcium) are water soluble, therefore cooking methods that use water can promote the loss of these vitamins during that stage.
  • Many Vitamins are prone to degradation (breakdown) from UV light.
  • Heat will breakdown many types of vitamins; vitamins B and C are the most sensitive to heat.

Now let’s take a look at the different cooking methods, and asses them based on how quick they cook, what heat is used, how long it takes, and how much liquid is used.  I’ve made a table as a nice visual to compare them all.

  • Cooking Method:
  • Microwave
  • Steaming
  • Boiling
  • Pan-Frying
  • Baking
  • Grilling
  • Time to cook:
  • Short
  • 10 minutes +
  • 10 – 30 + minutes
  • 5-30 minutes
  • 20-30 minutes +
  • 10-30 minutes
  • Amount of liquid used:
  • Very Little
  • Little bit
  • A lot
  • None to very little.
  • Some
  • None
  • Temperature:
  • 100 C
  • Sub 100 C
  • 100 C
  • 150 C +
  • 180 C +
  • 250 C +

In this table I suggestively ranked the cooking methods from best to worse in terms of having the highest retention of nutritional value.  However, keep in mind different foods have different cooking variables, some cook longer, some cook at higher temperatures, etc.  Also, different foods have different properties (the name a few: amount present, and different complexes present – that might prevent their loss) so they all won’t be affected the same by temperature, the presence of liquid, and time cooked.  As such, only use the above table as a guide.

A few facts about Grilling:

  • Grilling meat on a grill will reduce its fat content
  • Up to 40% of B vitamins and minerals may be lost during grilling or broiling when the nutrient-rich juice drips from the meat (ref.).
    • For your health, try to prevent the fat from dripping, and reduce the amount of  smoke.  Preventing the fat drip will reduce the amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) made, which are potentially cancer-causing substances; they form when fat drips onto a hot surface and aerosolizes (ref.).

A few facts about Pan-frying:

  • When cooking meats, if you retain/use the nutrient-rich juice the comes from the meat you will retain up to 70-90% of the B vitamins and 100% minerals – that would otherwise be lost.
  • Cooking for a short time without water prevents loss of B vitamins, and the addition of fat (as non-stick component) improves the absorption of plant compounds and antioxidants (ref.).

A few facts about Boiling:

  • Boiling reduces vitamin C more than any other cooking method; broccoli, spinach and lettuce may lose up to 50% or more of their vitamin C when boiled (ref.).
  • Boiling fish was shown to preserve omega-3 fatty acid content significantly more than frying or microwaving (ref.).
  • Cut food after rather than before cooking, if possible. When food is cooked whole, less of it is exposed to heat and water (ref.).

A few facts about Microwaving:

  • Studies have found that microwaving is the best method for retaining the antioxidant activity in garlic and mushrooms (ref.).
  • Spinach. Boil it on the stove, and it can lose up to 70 percent of its folic acid. Microwave it with just a little water, and you’ll retain nearly all its folic acid (ref.).
  • Cooking bacon on a griddle until it’s crispy (yum) can create nitrosamines, while microwaving bacon creates far fewer of these cancer-promoting chemicals.

So there are many different types of cooking methods and they all reduce the nutritional value in different ways depending on the variables that you use when you cook.  There is no perfect method of cooking that retains all nutrients and nutrients are only one of the things you need to consider when preparing foods; others being taste, time to cook, cost, etc.  In general, cooking for shorter periods at lower temperatures with minimal water will produce the best results.

Here are some more tips on how to maximize the nutritional value of your food:

  • Buy organic.  Organic products will have higher yields of vitamins and minerals in them.
  • Buy Fresh, Buy Local.  Buying fresh (think farmers market) will maximize the nutritional value as the food will likely have had less time to lose it’s nutritional value.  Same goes for buying local, shorter distance of travel = less processing used = more vitamins and minerals retained.
  • Buy In-season.  If the food of choice is out of season at your grocery store, that means you are getting that food from somewhere else in the world where it is in season.  As a result, it needs to be transported and preserved in some way to ensure it’s shelf life – both of which will effectively reduce it’s nutritional value.
  • Avoid processed and fast foods – processing will decrease the nutritional value of foods, as they are pre-cooked/pre-prepared and anything convenient (fast-food) always has lesser nutritional value.

Till next time,

-Mike

References:

https://authoritynutrition.com/cooking-nutrient-content/
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/do-microwaves-zap-nutrition
http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/microwave-cooking-and-nutrition
http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/ask-the-doctor-microwaves-impact-on-food