Kitchen nutrition hacks

It’s an age-old debate - are you better to eat vegetables and fruit raw or cooked? The answer is, it depends. Some vegetables are better eaten raw, this includes the cruciferous family like broccoli and watercress. When these vegetables are heated an important enzyme is damaged and this means the potency of anti-cancer compounds called glucosinolates, are reduced.

The answer – enjoy vegetables like these raw in a salad or lightly steamed to retain their vitamin C, iron and chlorophyll content. The same applies to kale – cook lightly or enjoy raw by adding to a smoothie, green juice or make into a pesto – add a squeeze of lemon juice to boost your iron and calcium uptake.

Vegetables that benefit from cooking include – carrots, asparagus and even tomatoes. Cooking makes it easier for our bodies to benefit from some of their protective antioxidants, like ferulic acid from asparagus, and beta-carotene, which we convert to vitamin A, from carrots. When you cook tomatoes – whether you roast them slowly or make a simple sauce – it helps to break down the plant cell walls, allowing us to better absorb the antioxidant lycopene.

All these nutrients help to safeguard our cells from environmental damage, may protect us from certain cancers and are heart-friendly.

2. Peel perfect

Do you peel out of habit or preference? Removing the peel of fruit and vegetables may mean you are removing one of the most nutrient-rich parts. That said some peel may be hard to clean, inedible or exposed to pesticides.

Take aubergine as an example, its skin is rich in protective antioxidants, while the green skin of cucumbers is packed with the mineral silicon that we need for healthy hair and nails. Similarly, courgette skins are rich in lutein and zeaxanthin, carotenoids that protect and promote healthy eyes, so wash well or lightly scrape clean rather than peel.

Enjoy our courgette, potato & cheddar soup.

3. Make more of quinoa, buckwheat, nuts and seeds

Pre-soaking or ‘activating’ these kinds of foods makes them easier to digest and helps us absorb more of their beneficial nutrients. This is because nuts, seeds and pseudo-cereals as well as beans and pulses have naturally occurring compounds that inhibit our ability to absorb and access their goodness. These compounds include phytic acid, lectins, oxalates, saponins and tannins.

Some nuts and seeds don’t need pre-soaking – these include Brazil nuts, macadamias, pine nuts, hemp and pistachios. Cashews only need a short time, 2-3 hours, whereas beans and pulses need much longer – typically 12 hours or overnight. Pseudo-cereals, including amaranth, buckwheat and quinoa, typically benefit from the addition of a little acid to the soaking water, such as lemon juice or apple cider vinegar. Discover our how to cook buckwheat guide.

Add a scattering of cashews to this healthy broccoli stir-fry.

How to ‘activate’

Place in a glass or ceramic bowl and top with double the volume of cold, filtered water. Cover and leave at room temperature for 8-12 hours, or overnight, then drain and rinse before use. If you plan to use later, simply cover and store for up to three days in the fridge, rinsing again before use.

4. Go late with garlic

Avoid adding garlic at the start of a recipe instead, to get more out of this nutritional powerhouse, prepare it 10 minutes before you need it and add to the dish shortly before you finish cooking. That’s because garlic is less potent if heated for any length of time – the heat reduces the amount of health-promoting allicin.

Garlic also benefits from being allowed to sit for 5-10 minutes before use. This is because allicin is only formed once the garlic is cut, chopped, minced or pressed. Being part of the same family, onions are also best eaten raw or lightly cooked.

Enjoy our creamy garlic, lemon & spinach salmon.

5. Fantastic fats

After decades out in the cold, it’s time to embrace fat and recognise its value in our diets. Certain nutrients like the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K and plant nutrients, like beta-carotene and lycopene, rely on the fat and oils in our diet to aid their uptake.

Although eating too much fat can be unhealthy, there are certain types of fat we must get from our diet because they’re essential to health. Without some fat or oils in our diets we can’t get the most from green leaves, like spinach, and brightly coloured fruit and vegetables including tomatoes, apricots and sweet potato.

Read more about low-fat diets and find out how much you should eat each day.

Serve up our squash & barley salad with balsamic vinaigrette.

6. Opt for frozen

At certain times of the year it’s worth considering frozen produce – commercially produced fruit and veg are frozen quickly after picking, which means they retain more nutrients than some supposedly ‘fresh’ options making them comparable or even higher in vitamin content.

If you grow your own vegetables – freeze in bags during the peak of the season. Even better, make a mirepoix – this classic base mixture usually combines onion, leeks, carrot and celery and is a great shortcut when you need to make a soup, stew or sauce.

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Do you have any nutrition tips or tricks? Leave a comment below...

Kerry Torrens BSc. (Hons) PgCert MBANT is a registered nutritionist with a post graduate diploma in Personalised Nutrition & Nutritional Therapy. She is a member of the British Association for Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine (BANT) and a member of the Guild of Food Writers. Over the last 15 years she has been a contributing author to a number of nutritional and cookery publications including BBC Good Food. Find her on Instagram at @kerry_torrens_nutrition_

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