What vegetables can be eaten raw
Everyone knows that vegetables are some of the healthiest foods: they are rich in vitamins and trace elements necessary for normal functioning of the body. Onions strengthen the body and improve thyroid function, peppers inhibit inflammation, beets normalize blood pressure, green salad reduces nervousness. But how to cook the fruit so that they retain all the useful elements and what vegetables can be eaten raw? Let’s find out below.
Why eat vegetables raw?
When heat treated, some vegetables lose their useful properties. For example, vitamin C, which is found in large amounts in Brussels sprouts, white cabbage and broccoli, loses up to 10 percent of its vitamin content after two minutes of boiling in hot water. Another important element, vitamin B, is also destroyed in these conditions.
What vegetables can I eat raw?
Raw eating is an eating regimen in which people consciously refuse to heat treat food. Ardent supporters believe that this is the way to a healthy body and harmony with nature. Of course, in this case, they have to give up animal products, replacing them with plant foods – vegetables, nuts, fruits, cold-pressed oils, honey and mushrooms. In this case, the question arises: what kind of raw vegetables is better to eat?
Carrots
If you want to crunch on a carrot, feel free to do it. It is safe to eat them in their raw form. However, boiled fruit contains 11% more lutein, the pigment needed to maintain visual acuity. And beta-carotene is four times more.
Tomatoes
Feel free to add them to salads raw, stew, boil… Tomatoes contain the important antioxidant lycopene for the prevention of many diseases. It is best absorbed after heat treatment. At the same time, if boiled or fried, tomatoes can lose up to 50% of their useful substances.
Sweet peppers
Red bell peppers contain a lot of vitamin C. It drops fourfold after being cooked.
Garlic
Because of the high content of B vitamins, this vegetable is better not subjected to heat treatment.
Avocado
Champion of saturated fats. This vegetable is great for quick satiety thanks to its vitamins B6, C and E. Some people prefer to cook it on the grill. This is possible, but then the amount of B6 will be noticeably reduced.
Broccoli and Cauliflower
For some reason, it is thought that broccoli and cauliflower can only be eaten boiled. This is not entirely true. Thermal processing partially loses vitamins A and C, potassium, folic acid and sulforaphane. As a last resort, you can keep the cabbage on the heat for two minutes – no more.
Young zucchini
The raw product contains a lot of B vitamins, PP, C and A, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and iron, organic acids. It also has no fat at all, and therefore no cholesterol.
Cucumber
This is not the healthiest food, because due to its high water content, it has almost no vitamins. That is why you can safely eat it both raw and fried, baked.
Beets
Surprisingly, even beets are better to eat raw. On the one hand, when boiled it loses up to 60% of useful substances. On the other hand, not everyone will like it without heat treatment, and it is a big load on the body because the raw product is too difficult to digest.
Onions
This vegetable is eaten both raw and cooked. If the first option is suitable for salads, the second – as an additive in soups, sauté and stew. By the way, at high temperatures, the content of selenium (a trace element responsible for the immune system and the cardiovascular system) increases significantly.
Asparagus
Most people prefer to eat it baked or fried. In fact, if you eat some asparagus raw with olive oil, nothing bad can happen. It is better to choose thin and young shoots.
Spinach
This is one of the healthiest plants to eat cheeses. True, after cooking you can get 25% more carotenoids – antioxidant pigments and three times more calcium.
Vegetables You Can’t Eat Raw
Some people believe that heat treatment kills all the nutrients. To some extent, this is true.
However, sometimes high temperatures on the contrary allow the release of other nutrients.
Potatoes
First, raw potatoes will be hard to eat because they are quite hard. Second, consuming the starch that the root vegetable is so rich in can lead to bloating and flatulence.
Brussels sprouts
It’s the same as with cauliflower. It loses a lot of micronutrients in hot water, and in raw form it is too difficult for the body to digest. The compromise is to steam it.
Mushrooms
This is not supposed to be a vegetable or even a plant. In any case, most of the mushrooms are better not to eat in raw form, as it can be dangerous. The exceptions are oyster mushrooms and mushrooms.
Does fruit need to be heat-treated?
Raw fruit is a common thing for us. Generally speaking, this is the way we eat them. However, if you want to make a nutritious dessert, you can roast apples, pears or quinces with honey and nuts. And in Asia, for example, they are very fond of roasted bananas.