蔬菜如何烹饪会更合理菜是我们日常饮食中必遥少的重要内容,但你知道如何才能保存甚至提升蔬菜自身的营养价值吗? 这一切的关键在于烹饪方法,一起来看看科学家们的建议吧!
Food experts say it’s all too easy to lose the medical benefits of vegetables
by boiling or freezing their nutrients away. Here, we show you the best ways to
prepare your vegetables—and how you can maximise nutrient levels through
cooking.
GENERAL RULES FOR COOKING VEGETABLES
There are two ways that vegetables lose vitamins and minerals, says Anna
Denny, a scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation. “The first is when
nutrients leachinto water when boiled. The second is when they are broken down
through heat. Obviously it is difficult not to heat vegetables, so the key is to
heat them for a brief amount of time—two to three minutes at most. ” If the
vegetables are still crunchy when you eat them, then they’re probably still
packed with nutrients. If they are tender and soft, they’re not.
Denny says that the more delicate the vegetable, the less you should cook it.
“Spinach, for example, breaks down very quickly. You can cook it into nothing in
no time at all. ”
The best way to cook a vegetable is to steam it in a very small amount of
water. Make sure that the water is hot to start with, so that the vegetables
don’t have to be in the steamer for very long.
Don’t be afraid to use the microwave. It may be seen as the most evil
apparatus in the kitchen, but microwaving is far better than boiling. Again, use
only a tiny amount of water and heat for no more than three minutes.
Stir-frying is a good way to cook vegetables. Don’t use too much fatty
oil.
The only vegetable you should boil is the potato, says Denny. If you
absolutely have to boil your vegetables, you can consume their leached-out
nutrients by keeping the water and using it to make fresh soup or stock.
TOMATOES
“Fresh isn’t always best,” says Frankie Phillips of the British Dietetic
Association. “Lycopene, the antioxidant that has been found to lower the risk of
some cancers, notably prostate, is absorbed better from processed tomatoes than
fresh ones. It’s thought that when they are broken down, more of the lycopene is
released. ” To that end, it’s best to puree your tomatoes.
PEPPERS
Phillips advises lightly stir-frying peppers in any type of oil for between
two and three minutes. This is because the fat in the oil helps the
beta-carotene in peppers to absorb. Beta-carotene is an antioxidant which has
been found to boost immunity, protect the eyes and fight cancer-causing free
radicals.
GARLIC
It’s all in the preparation with garlic. Researchers at Penn State University
in America found that heating, roasting and microwaving garlic immediately after
crushing it destroys the enzyme that produces a kind of cancer-fighting
compound. However, leaving the chopped or crushed garlic to stand for 10 minutes
preserves the enzyme.
BROCCOLI
When buying broccoli, make sure it is uniform in colour to ensure freshness.
Stems take slightly longer to cook than florets, so put them on a minute
earlier. Don’t get rid of the leaves because they are rich in nutrients, too. It
is thought that slicing broccoli helps to release some of its nutrients so they
are more readily absorbed by the body.
Vocabulary
antioxidant 抗氧化剂
apparatus 设备,器具
beta-carotene β-胡萝卜素
boost 增强
break down 损坏
broccoli 花椰菜,球花甘蓝
chop 剁,砍
consume 吃,喝
crunchy 发嘎吱嘎吱声的,脆的
ensure 遥,确定
enzyme 酶
floret 小花
free radical 遥基,游离基
immunity 遥疫力
leach 过滤,滤掉
lycopene 番茄红素
maximize 较大限度地利用(某事物)
nutrient 养分,营养物
processed 加工处理过的
prostate 前列腺
puree 把……捣压成酱(泥、糊或羹)
slice 切
spinach 菠菜
steamer 蒸锅
stem (植物的)茎
stir-frying 炒
stock 原汤,汤汁
uniform 全部相同的,遥的