Keeping the GOOD in Your Groceries

Italian Roasted Delicata Squash

Contributed by Sue Moores, M.S., R.D., Kowalski's Nutritionist.

There's a whole lot of goodness in food. You can benefit from it or miss out depending on how you care for and prepare what you buy.

As you'd suspect, nearly all foods in their raw state contain more vitamins and phytonutrients than if they are cooked. However, whether or not they're available to be digested and absorbed by your body is an entirely different matter. Luckily, you can influence the variables.

Here is a cheat sheet to help you enhance the nutritional highlights of your foods and reap more of their inherent goodness:

Food Enhancers
Grains, beans, tubers (such as potatoes and yams) and squash

Cooking breaks down cell walls in plants, helping improve the availability, digestibility and absorption of nutrients. It helps form substances that feed the good bacteria in your gut.

 

Bonus points: Cook tubers in their skins. You'll retain nearly all their vitamins.

Fruits and vegetables Eat the peel or "skin" of a fruit or vegetable whenever possible. Many phytonutrients are found within or just underneath the outside layers of produce.
Tomatoes and dark green and orange vegetables 

Mild heating increases the availability and absorption of carotenes. Overcooking reduces their availability.

 

Bonus points: Eat these foods with a healthful fat such as extra virgin olive oil, a nut or seed oil, or an ounce of nuts or seeds. It increases the absorption of carotenes as well as other vitamins and phytonutrients.

Phytates, tannins, saponins, etc. (anti-nutrient substances found in whole grains and beans) Cooking helps destroy some of these substances, which helps the nutrients in grains and bean be better absorbed.

 

Maple Blue Butternut Squash

Additional tips:

  • Select foods that are as close to their "whole" state as possible. The more processing a food goes through, the greater the odds it will lose much of its nutritional mojo.
  • Skip the "stock up" mentality. Buy in amounts you know you can use sooner rather than later. Nutrient losses rise as storage time increases.
  • Store canned or jarred foods in a cool (<70°), dark spot. Avoid thawing and refreezing foods.
  • Use crisper bins in your refrigerator to limit produce's exposure to light and air. Some nutrients, such as B vitamins and vitamin C, are affected by both.
  • Buy milk in cardboard or opaque containers to minimize loss of riboflavin, vitamin A and other nutrients.