How to Make Vegetables Healthier

Vegetables offer enormous health benefits. They’re rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that play an important role in protecting against a variety of chronic diseases ranging from heart disease to cancer. Unfortunately, most Americans still aren’t getting enough veggies in their diet. No wonder the rate of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity are soaring! Simply following the standard guideline of eating seven or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day can go far towards promoting better health. Even if you can’t manage to get in a full seven or more servings of produce a day, there are ways to make the vegetables you do eat healthier so you’ll get more overall nutritional value. Here are some easy ways to make vegetables healthier.

Add a Little Olive Oil

Lightly sautéing vegetables in olive oil is a simple way to add additional health benefits to vegetables. Not only is olive oil a heart-healthy oil rich in anti-oxidants, the addition of a small amount of fat helps the nutrients in the vegetables be more easily absorbed. The result?  More benefits from the vegetables you eat. Plus, it’s a healthier alternative to cream-based sauces.

Add a Tomato Sauce

Cooked tomatoes are an excellent source of heart-healthy lycopenes, carotenoids which are being studied for their role in preventing prostate cancer. Adding a tomato based sauce to vegetables adds additional vitamins and carotenoids you might not otherwise get. You can also add veggies to spaghetti and pasta dishes for additional nutritional benefits.

Steam Them

Lightly steaming vegetables with a minimum of water is the best way to preserve their vitamins and nutrients. When vegetables are boiled, many of the nutrients and vitamins leech out into the water and are discarded down the sink. Although microwaved vegetables retain more vitamin C than some other cooking methods, some of the antioxidants may be lost. This can be prevented by microwaving vegetables in a covered container without added water so they cook in their own steam.

Save the Vegetable Cooking Liquid

When you steam vegetables or prepare them in a crockpot, save the water and use it in soups. Any vitamins and antioxidants that leach out into the water will be preserved and you’ll still get the health benefits.  

Eat Them Raw Occasionally

Some of the vitamins and phytochemicals will be lost even with steaming, so, occasionally, eat your vegetables raw. Eating a mixture of raw and cooked vegetables is best since some vegetables, such as tomatoes, offer more health benefits when they’re cooked. The same holds true for carrots. More of the carotenoids in carrots are absorbed when carrots are cooked than when they’re eaten raw.

Enjoy the many benefits that vegetables have to offer!