I hear pretty much any kind of cooking reduces the nutrients in a food, so my question is if there are any situations or any vegetables where cooked is better than raw.
It’s easier to digest! Also, there are certain veggies that have a higher nutrient profile when cooked, such as tomatoes, asparagus, broccoli, and carrots. On the other hand, certain other veggies are in fact more nutritious when raw, so just try to get a mix of raw and cooked veggies and you should be good! Also, at the end of the day, all veggies are good for you no matter how they’re cooked so just pick the way you prefer:)
Cooking unlocks nutrients by making food easier to digest. Eating raw foods relies on your bacteria in your gut to help you digest your food (and also creates more gas). Humans have had the shape of their mouth evolve as we cooked food and no longer relied on our teeth to pull meat of the bone. It also lessened our need for wisdom teeth as we didn’t wear our teeth dealing with dirt and large amounts of vegetable roughage. Modern day processed foods have gotten ahead of our evolution and scientists are discovering that a lot of food we should eat is designed for the bacteria in our gut that controls our moods. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzPD009qTN4
What I’ve done to get my vegetable and fruit intake in is to simply just juice them. You’re losing some nutrition and fiber, but it’s better than cooking them and I hate eating them anyway so it’s a good alternative for me.