Raw vs. cooked vegetables

For a practitioner of the vegetarian diet, the distinction between the processing of certain products can be complex. What is the difference between eating raw vegetables and eating them cooked? Is it harmful to eat cooked vegetables?

Next we will go deeper into this subject, with the objective of making a distinction about the properties and benefits that we can find in the preparation of vegetables in one way or another of the above mentioned. This topic will be of great importance if you want to incorporate the consumption of vegetables to your diet, whether you are a vegetarian or not, vegetables are a food included in almost all diets for the properties they provide to the body, so this information will be useful when making your meal plans.

Raw or cooked?

Well, the big question on this subject is: Do we cook our vegetables or not? The answer is more complex than you might expect, the cooking or not of vegetables is recommended depending on the vegetable we are referring to. In fact, we do not have a sort of formula so that you can know in advance whether or not to cook a vegetable. The fact here is that, while in many cases cooking vegetables or subjecting them to high temperatures causes them to lose important properties, in many other cases it is the other way around, and cooking is the best way to take advantage of the nutrients and minerals they contain by releasing them through heat reduction.

There is a middle ground among the nutritionist community, vegetables should not be cooked to extremes, some argue that boiling vegetables suitable for high temperatures is the best way to get the most out of their nutrients.

To give you an idea of the above, cooked tomatoes are better than raw ones, because they release their properties when subjected to heat. When we cook spinach, the release of the minerals it contains increases.

Boiled carrots are better than raw carrots, but when frying them, many nutrients are lost. Raw garlic contains considerable amounts of antioxidants and when cooked they are usually lost.

Raw broccoli is very beneficial in the fight against and prevention of cancerous diseases, however cooking it is not harmful, but increases many of its nutrients. Mushrooms at high temperatures are richer in potassium than when eaten raw.

Regarding the taste of each one, it is more a matter of taste. There are people who will surely find the consumption of boiled or fried vegetables tasty, while others will enjoy the pleasure of eating them raw. The question of taste is not a dete