Follow up: what are some ways to cook vegetables to both preserve nutrients and make them yummy?
Air frying is just a term for baking, so the nutrient loss of vegetables that have been air fried would be comparable to baked vegetables. Generally, the less heat, time, and water that’s used in a cooking process, the greater the nutrient retention will be
C and some B’s are heat sensitive.
Steaming is the least lossy because it will never exceed 212o but air frying is not bad. Boiling or deep frying is the most lossy depending on what you are cooking.
It’s not worth trying to count this, it should just be a preference order.
There’s sort of a trade off with this.
Cooking vegetables do destroy nutrients, however, the nutrients that are spared have their cell walls weakened, making it easier for the body to absorb them.
The thing with food is that just because it has all these nutrients, it doesn’t necessarily mean you absorb them all. Raw food is much more difficult to absorb nutrients from than cooked food, even if there’s more of them.
It kinda needs to be said. I used to worry too.
Heat causes loss of nutrients because it can destroy their chemical structure, yet it also breaks down plant cell tissue resulting in more of the nutrients becoming available for our digestive system.
Unlike cows or other ruminants, the human body is actually not very well suited for processing raw vegetables. The flora of our gut simply doesn’t have the tools (time, acidity,…). In the entire human digestive process, only chewing well results in a decent amount of plant cells being destroyed and thus in the availability of the cells content - containing the nutrients.
So essentially baking does some bad, but also a lot of good, since it can be seen as a pre-digestive step allowing us to fully process it. How bad or how good depends on a ton of factors and its just not worth it really worrying about.
So make em how you like brother. As long as you eat them plenty and dont obliterate them while cooking, you’re gold!
None are lost (compared to other cooking methods), it just blows air on them.
I love Broccoli. Straight from frozen into the air fryer, 16 minutes at 400 degrees, shake at 8 and 4 minutes. Sprinkle with either lemon or lime juice once done.
I don’t use any oil.
Can also sprinkle with any seasoning… Red Robin fry seasoning is decent, haha. Even the chili lime Trader Joe seasoning is good.
Cauliflower, same thing, but I go 25 minutes, instead of 16.
I like them a little crispy.
So I was curious about the same thing a few months ago and did some digging.
It’s what you’d expect. Anything cooked with any temperature will lose at least - some - of its nutrient. How much it loses, depends on the type of food, how long you cook it, and at what temperature.
That’s why you see people either advocating for eating raw veggies, the ones you safely can. Or steaming as it uses vastly less direst heat compared to air fryers, deep frying etc.
But my thinking imo is, it really don’t matter much. I eat broccoli almost every night, and that’s part because I love the taste of it in the air fryer. The alternative is me not eating broccoli at all, which compared to losing a few of its nutrient during the process and still tasting good to me, not worth it. Enjoy it