What are the best ways to get the most out of vegetables?

Stephen Hawking loves nothing better than a quick round of naked twister, does him the world of good.

I’m afraid you lost me there.

fair enough

…wait, never mind. I got it. omg dude hahaha

Hee hee

Some nutrients are not available unless the vegetable is cooked. Some are only retained if eaten raw. I would say lightly steamed is probably best if you don’t want to do piles of research. I don’t. I just eat them the way I like them.

Mr. Hawking should be cooked. He is technically not a vegetable since his mind is intact though. So I guess more like a fruit?

Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson is a fantastic book about maximizing nutrition, both in your choice of foods and preparation.

It’s a meta-study – she looked at tons of research measuring nutrients, and boiled it down (pun intended) into manageable, easily-remembered sections.

Also, she shows how to do the best with what’s available, meaning she helps whether you’re shopping at the farmers market or the frozen foods in the grocery store. In fact, sometimes she recommends canned or frozen over fresh.

Here are quick tips from this PDF

12 terrific tips for getting the most flavor and nutrition from the fruits and vegetables you love!
•Tearing Romaine and Iceberg lettuce the day before you eat it quadruples its antioxidant content.
•The healing properties of garlic can be maximized by slicing, chopping, mashing, or pressing it and then letting it rest for a full 10 minutes before cooking.
•The yellowest corn in the store has 35 times more beta-carotene than white corn.
•Cooking potatoes and then chilling them for about 24 hours before you eat them (even if you reheat them) turns a high-glycemic vegetable into a low- or moderate-glycemic vegetable. Paradoxically, combining potatoes with oil (French fry alert!) helps keep them from disrupting your metabolism.
•Carrots are more nutritious cooked than raw. When cooked whole, they have 25 percent more falcarinol, a cancer-fighting compound, than carrots that have been sectioned before cooking.
•Beet greens are more nutritious than the beets themselves.
•The smaller the tomato, the more nutrients it contains. Deep red tomatoes have more antioxidants than yellow, gold, or green tomatoes.
•The most nutritious tomatoes in the supermarket are not in the produce aisles— they are in the canned goods section! Processed tomatoes, whether canned or cooked into a paste or sauce, are the richest known source of lycopene. They also have the most flavor.
•Storing broccoli wrapped in a plastic bag with tiny pin pricks in it will give you up to 125 percent more antioxidants than if you had stored the broccoli loosely wrapped or in a tightly sealed bag.
•Canned or jarred artichokes are just as nutritious as fresh.
•Thawing frozen berries in the microwave preserves twice as many antioxidants and more vitamin C than thawing them on the counter or inside your refrigerator.
•Ounce per ounce, there is more fiber in raspberries than bran cereals

Links
Fresh Air interview with Jo Robinson
Jo Robinson’s web site

I’m just heading out the door, but I’ll come back to this question. I’m all tingly just thinking about it : P

^ Gotta love that enthusiasm for steamed veggies… <3

Lurve, @Kardamom.

These days, I either lightly steam or lightly sauté, and usually the latter. A bit of oil or butter on medium heat, add some coarse salt, maybe a dash of vermouth to keep things from drying out, then add greens, cover and turn heat down. As long as you don’t overcook it, you lose very little.

Or, you know, you could put them under a broiling chicken (things like carrots, potatoes, onions). You don’t lose anything, but gain delicious chicken fat.

I would say lightly steam or stir fry.

I actually don’t think I can add much to what @jaytkay said, but I’ll throw in my two cents and a few recipes too.

Multitudes and variety are also key. The more different types of veggies you eat (and the less of other things like meat that would take their place) the better off you’ll be regarding getting in more of those nutrients.

Then make sure to eat more of the most most nutrient dense veggies. Here is a list of the most Nutrient Dense veggies. Actually it’s a rating system for nutritional value of veggies called the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index.

Some vegetables are more nutritional when cooked, but there is sometimes a trade-off, especially regarding vitamin C. But according to this Article in Scientific American, in some cases it’s better to cook (by steaming, blanching or boiling) to gain lycopene, while losing the vitamin C, because there are more fruits and vegetables that contain vitamin C than there are fruits and veggies containing lycopene. Again, variety is key. Eat both cooked and raw veggies, of the same type, such as carrots and broccoli, at different meals. You don’t always have to eat them the same way every time. Mix it up.

Again, variety is key, but the more Colorful Veggies tend to have more nutrients, than the lighter colored veggies such as potatoes and celery and cauliflower, although those veggies have other important nutrients, so make sure you gets lots of everything. Red, green, purple, orange, yellow and white.

Avoid eating Deep Fried Veggies (unless you’re going to the county fair LOL)

It’s easier to consume more vegetables of any type if you have them ready to grab and go, whether you plan to throw some into your lunch box, or whether you need to start your dinner and don’t have tons of time. I like to shop for veggies on a Saturday, then clean and prep as many of them that I can on Sunday, then put everything into ziplock bags or containers so they’re ready to use. It can take most of a day to do this, but it saves you the time of having to make a decision when all of that un-prepped produce is staring you in the eye when you’re hungry and tired.

Stop throwing out all of your vegetable scraps and freeze them so you can make your own homemade vegetable stock later. Most store bought stocks are rather bland and contain lots of sodium. This site tells you which veggie scraps are the best ones to save and which ones are not and then it gives you a very easy recipe for making your own Vegetable Stock

Another reason not to throw out your vegetable scraps is because there is often a lot of good stuff in the stuff we usually throw out, like the greens from beets and radishes, or the darker green parts of leeks. This site talks about the Stuff You Usually Throw Out and how using those items, in ways that you may not have thought of, makes your diet more varied, and saves a lot on food waste.

Some pickled vegetables are on the OK, list especially when they are homemade. Most store bought pickles have way too much sodium and they are cooked and some of the nutrients, such as vitamin C are lost. When you make pickled veggies at home, it’s not necessary to cook them (although if you are “canning” vegetables and making pickles, some of the nutrients will be lost, although these will still be better for you than store bought processed pickles). This Article explains the difference between pickling and fermentation. Fermented veggies, such as kimchi, are very nutritious. This Site also talks about pickles and how they should be stored and what nutrients may be lost. They mention kimchi as a pickled item, but it is actually a fermented vegetable, which is different as was mentioned in the above article. It’s somewhat confusing only because some people refer to some fermented products as pickles interchangeable, when they really are two separate things. Fermented veggies are much better for you than pickled veggies, and cold pickled veggies are better for you than cooked or processed pickles. Does that make sense?

Don’t forget to eat your Beans

Now for some recipes on how to fix veggies that you may not have thought of. Because, once again, variety is the key!

Pickled Turnips

Pickled Daikon Radish and Carrot Slaw

Somewhat Complicated Kimchi

Easy Kimchi

Shredded Brussels Sprouts Salad with Cranberries, Blue Cheese, Bacon, and Maple Vinaigrette Here’s a picture of This Salad

Mexican Bean Salad

Steamed Carrots with Tahini, Sumac and Garlic Dressing

Asian Noodle Salad

Asian Slaw with Ginger Peanut Dressing

Raw Kale Salad with Tahini, Lemon, Cayenne Dressing

Mango, Avocado and Arugula Salad

Cilantro Lime Chickpea Salad

Lemony Wheatberries with Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Shredded Yellow Beet, Carrot and Apple Salad with Orange Ginger Dressing

Smoky Butternut Squash and Black Bean Salad

White Bean and Roasted Mushroom Soup

Beet and Red Cabbage Borscht

Chipotle Pumpkin Soup

Sweet Potato and Peanut Soup

Vegetarian Pho with Lemongrass Broth

Homemade Tomato Soup

Minestrone Soup

Kale Salad Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

Roasted Chickpeas 4 Ways

Spinach and Mushroom Quiche Baked in Muffin Tins

North African Spiced Carrots

Grilled Brussels Sprouts

Mushroom Skewers

Garlicky Collard Greens

Sweet Potatoes Stuffed With White Beans and Greens

Frijoles de Olla

Danish Red Cabbage

Indian Red Bean Curry

Makhani Dal

Spicy Indian Carrot Pickle

Spicy Indian Cabbage

Beet Chocolate Cake

Vegetable Desserts

Your colon’s gonna love you : )

I’m not sure how much of the nutrient value is lost but I love soups and stews with heaps of veggies. I also add grated carrot, zucchini and the like to dishes that wouldn’t normally have such things. Just to boost the veggie content. I like to roast veggies too or slice up eggplant, zucchini etc. and cook them on the barbie or put them in a veggie lasagne.

I don’t know if these methods kill the value but they all taste good.

Good god, this is a lot of information about preparing vegetables.

@Blackberry You have a thing for big butts, K has a thing for food.

@Symbeline I would broil them or grill them if you wanted them cooked. I’ve done a lot of it and it’s amazing.

@jaytkay and @Kardamom Whoa…heh wow, I don’t even know where to begin. Damn this is way more than I could have asked for, and I’m real thankful for it. I’m especially happy about the info on parts of veggies I usually don’t eat, thinking they were no good. And HOW to prepare them (many oh so simple, really) and all the recipes. See I’m no cook, but I can still whip up some good enough stuff if I make the effort, and since I love vegetables and never know what to make with them, all this here is pretty much a godsend. I’m going to have to look over some of these answers in bigger detail, but really, thank you. :)

And I am SO up for the minestrone soup. I’m so trying that, at least to start with. Thanks everyone. :)

Also yall there’s some vegetables in those recipes I never even heard of lol.

@dappled_leaves Aye, this is something I’ve sort of come to learn with my chicken experiments, glad to know I’m not crazy.
And no overcooking the veggies, got it. :) (totally did that with my onions last time I cooked a chicken)

@Kardamom I LOVE pickled veggies, but yeah, I knew it was better if it was homemade, and all mine are store bought. Unless there’s some methods in your links, haven’t looked at everything yet, least not in detail…how does one make their own pickled veggies? Well I probably shouldn’t ask, as I assume this requires your own garden…which I don’t have. :/ But still any info if you, or anyone has it, will be cool. :)

@Kardamom Damn, I’ll just bookmark that post. Good info!

The longer you cook them the more goodies you will lose from your veggies. The best is to pick the veggies yourself from your garden and eat them raw but that is no fun. Steaming or quickly roasted over a red hot grill is my favorite way to prepare my veggies.

I just realized that in my excitement to answer this question, my fingers were flying and I made a bunch of typos. Sorry for that.

@Symbeline Yes, you can make your own pickles at home without having a garden. The best pickles will be made with the freshest veggies. Do you have a Farmers Market nearby? If not, just get the freshest veggies you can find at the grocery store. The first 2 items on my list from above are pickles. Let me add some more. I too, love pickles.

I’m only going to list recipes for pickles that don’t have to be Canned (cooked in a hot pressure bath into sterilized jars) because I don’t do any of that myself, it takes too long and it’s too complicated and I don’t have any of the equipment. For some of the recipes you do heat or cook some of the ingredients, but these recipes are not the same thing as canning. And know that pickles that are not canned don’t last as long as canned or store bought pickles, and after you made them, they have to be stored in the refrigerator. You can’t keep them at room temperature on a shelf in the root cellar. They may only last a few weeks to a month, depending on the recipe. So you gotta eat ‘em up quick : )

Easy Garlic Dill Pickles

Quick Pickled Onions

Quick Pickled Radishes

Virginia’s Pickled Vegetables

Pickled Cucumbers, Bell Peppers and Onions

Carrot Pickles with Garlic and Ginger

Easy Refrigerator Pickles

Spicy Pickled Carrots

Easy Summertime Sweet Pickles

Easy Bread and Butter Pickles

Japanese Pickled Radishes with Green Onion

Japanese Pickled Turnips

Wow…pickled onions? I didn’t even know you could do that with them…but I like the sound of it. :) And yeah this all seems pretty simple to do. Like you, I don’t have a pressure bath either.
And yes, there’s a place two minutes away that specializes in both vegetables and fruits that are not ’‘conserved’’. The only disadvantage to this is things I want but cannot always get if they’re not in season. Still this is where I get most of my vegetables because they taste better and seriously, for some reason they cost so much less money than grocery store ones. And turnips FTW yo. :D

Yes, pickled turnips are da bomb! I’ve had both the Japanese and Lebanese kind, both are very different, but both are delicious.

If you like pickles, you might also like banchan. Banchan are the little side dishes that accompany Korean meals. They’re mostly veggies and some seafood. Most traditional banchan usually has some fish sauce, but since you’re not a vegetarian it doesn’t matter. You can easily find vegetarian banchan recipes, or you can simply omit or swap out the fish sauce for soy sauce.

Here are some recipes for banchan:

Daikon Banchan

Mung Bean Banchan

Cucumber Banchan

Mushroom Banchan

Garlic Banchan

Cheese and picked onion sangers… yum.

What you are up against here is cellulose. That is what the cell walls are made of. Vitamin A and some other vitamins are inside the cells. Your gut can’t digest cellulose. That is why you chew veggies so much: to break down the cell walls and expose the vitamin A and other stuff inside. Cooking does that for you. So does grinding. What you get out of a vegetable depends mostly on how soft it is. Steaming does a nice job of cooking the food without soaking out all the flavor. If you are accustomed to boiled veggies, a steamer basket will be a religious experience for you. Sliced raw veggies with Green Goddess salad dressing will be another discovery. I mean veggies that are soft inside without cooking. Jicama if you can get it.