Eating a balanced diet with more fruits and vegetables is the best way to have a healthy body full of strength and vitality. Fortunately, many people are trying to adopt a healthy diet since the rise of diabetes, obesity and other diet-related diseases.
The downside of eating healthy foods, however, is that you have to prepare them at home to ensure all the ingredients are safe. In the process of cooking and preparing those delicious foods, most people actually destroy the important nutrients without knowing it. This explains why some people continue to eat healthy meals but don’t seem to be getting the results they should be getting in their bodies like a more healthy looking skin, hair and bones.
This article will look at some of the healthy foods you might be preparing wrongly and killing the good stuff:
1. Whole grain cereals
The era of pressure cookers has made boiling whole grain cereals like beans so much easier. You can just throw them in there, seal off the pressure cooker and you will have cooked beans in less than an hour. Unfortunately, that is the wrong way of doing it because such grains should be soaked in warm water and salt for a few hours or overnight.
Soaking cereals helps to release phytates that bind into other minerals like iron and make them harder to digest. Soaking also makes the outer shell tender so your cooking time will be even shorter and will permit the grains to retain all the nutrients.
2. Green leafy vegetables and Broccoli
Broccoli and most greens taste better when they are stir-fried. That is what most people do. However, these vegetables should be steamed instead because stir-frying or boiling lowers the amount of chlorophyll, vitamin C and soluble protein significantly.
If you still want to make a delicious stir-fry, you can steam the green vegetables separately for a few minutes and then add them to the stir-fry when it’s ready. Most people also cut off the stem from the broccoli which contains the most vitamins and antioxidants. Haha, it should definitely be eaten!
3. Flaxseed
These nutritious seeds are some of the most abused healthy foods in the history of the world. Flaxseeds have a very thick outer shell that doesn’t digest easily when consumed. The best way to get all the good stuff from flaxseeds is to process them by grinding the seeds to powder form or oil. You can add flaxseed powder to your milkshake, yoghurt, smoothie or even any food.
4. Garlic
Garlic is one of the best foods to eat daily if you want to boost your immunity, stop inflammations and control cardiovascular diseases. What most people don’t know is that you have to crush the garlic to get the key ingredient which is allicin. That means that cutting garlic on top of your food will not help you much. It’s also important to let the crushed garlic rest for about ten minutes or so before adding it to food or cooking it. This way of consumption applies for onions too.
5. Tomatoes and Carrots
There has been a crazy movement of eating tomato salad and making detox blends with carrot and cabbage. While carrots and tomatoes are really delicious eaten raw, they are more nutritious cooked. In fact, carrots only produce vitamin A when mixed with oil in the process of cooking. Cooked tomatoes allow for up to 4 times more lycopene to be absorbed in your body as compared to raw ones.
6. Yoghurt
When you prepare a Greek yoghurt, there is a watery substance that floats above that yummy and creamy goodness you want to scoop into your mouth. What you don’t know is that the watery substance, also known as whey, contains a lot of protein, vitamin B12, calcium, and phosphorous. Instead of pouring it out, you should take a spoon and stir it into the yoghurt.
7. Eggs
Few things can compete with fried eggs, hush puppies and bacon in the morning. Unfortunately, frying or putting them in pancakes reduces all those proteins, vitamin D and amino acids found in eggs. You should try poached or hard-boiled eggs with a serving of greens or citrus fruit to get all the nutrients.
While you want to feel full and energetic after eating food, it is more important to save quality so you can get nutrients from everything you eat. By using these proper ways to prepare foods, you ensure that you enjoy the full benefits and get the best out of your healthy diet every day. ❤️
Recommended for you: Do you store your food properly?, Why an apple a day keeps the doctor away?
