5 Foods You Are Eating Wrong
How you cut, cook, and sip matters when it comes to getting the most health benefits from certain foods.
Vegetables
Your mistake: Boiling them
The fix: Steaming
Why it works: Steaming helps retain cancer-fighting nutrients in cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and arugula, better than other cooking methods. Also, when you boil vegetables many of the vitamins found in them are released into the water so, unless you drink the water, steaming in a steaming basket for 3 to 4 minutes is your best bet.
Strawberries
Your mistake: Slicing them before eating
The fix: Eating them whole
Why it works: Whole strawberries contain 8 to 12 percent more vitamin C than the cut strawberries because vitamin C begins to break down when it’s exposed to light and oxygen. For the biggest C boost, store whole strawberries in the fridge—cool temperature help retain vitamin C too.
Tomatoes
Your mistake: Eating them raw
The fix: Heating them up
Why it works: Tomatoes have been linked to lowering the risk of stroke, helping fight prostate cancer, and preserving brain power with age. Heating tomatoes significantly increases their levels of lycopene, the chemical that can up antioxidant levels. Cook tomatoes in olive oil for the biggest nutritional boost: Lycopene is fat-soluble, meaning you need fat in your diet for your body to absorb it properly.
Frozen Produce
Your mistake: You skip right over frozen foods at the grocery store
The fix: Hitting the freezers
Why it works: Most people think only fresh is healthy, but this is a huge misconception. In fact in most cases frozen fruits and vegetables pack higher levels of antioxidants—including polyphenols, vitamin C, and beta-carotene—than the fresh kind. As produce ages, nutrients begin to change and break down. It's therefore better to eat food that was frozen at prime ripeness with its nutrients intact than week-old produce that no longer has the same beneficial chemical makeup.
