The Best Veggie Cooking Techniques For Maximum Health Benefits

To enhance the cancer-fighting compounds in plant foods, you may need different cooking techniques for different vegetables.

Steaming broccoli for only three to four minutes until it turns bright green, for example, will assure that you get more of the vegetable’s bioactive compounds, according to a study presented at the American Institute for Cancer Research’s annual research conference. But boiling or microwaving broccoli destroys some of its healthful potential, say cancer researchers.

Other health-boosting tips include:

• Chop garlic, and then wait 10 to 15 minutes before cooking with it to allow substances in the garlic to convert into allicin, a protective plant chemical.
• Cook tomatoes to allow lycopene, a tomato substance with antioxidant properties, to be more easily absorbed.