nutrition

Question

Dear team,
I have a question. I would like to nourish my daughter as healthy as possible. She doesn't like raw food but she eats vegetables not fully cooked.
What does better preserve the vitamins: cooking only one portion of vegetables and store the raw vegetables until cooked or cooking all vegetables and keep them cool and rewarm the cooked vegetables the other day? Or is there no difference? (we buy fresh things 2-3 times a week)

Answer

Vitamins are basically relatively labile. They are sensitive to light, oxygen and/or heat. There is no difference between fat-soluble and water-soluble vitamins. Large losses already occur during storage or transport from the "field" to the kitchen. Storage at room temperature (e.g. fruit) can show a loss of up to 50% after a single day. This also happens, for example, during display in the supermarket. A dark, cool and humid environment is favourable, which preserves the vitamins a little longer. A crisper with humidity control offers good conditions in this respect.

When cooking, there are losses especially of vitamins B1, pantothenic acid, folic acid, vitamins C and A. On the other hand, it should be considered that the vitamins in cabbage vegetables, for example, only become accessible to the body when the rigid plant cell membrane breaks down during the cooking process.

Accordingly, in order to achieve the highest possible vitamin content, steps that require long storage, (prolonged) cooking and reheating should be avoided (e.g. pre-cooking "fresh" vegetables from the supermarket, cooling them and reheating them). Fruits and vegetables that are eaten raw within a few hours of harvesting thus contain the highest levels of vitamins. Even vegetables and fruit that are shock-frozen directly after harvesting still contain a very high vitamin content.

Since your daughter does not like to eat raw vegetables, fresh vegetables that you process gently (steaming/steaming) and eat on the same day as well as 2 portions of fruit would provide the best possible vitamin intake. The critical vitamins are vitamin C and beta-carotene, possibly also folic acid. All other vitamins are also found in sufficient quantities in other food groups, so that a balanced mixed diet (see nutrition cube or nutrition pyramid) ensures a good vitamin supply.
Best regards,
Suzanne van Dullemen

25.04.2025