There’s no doubt about it.. Fruits and vegetables are super healthy.
Most are rich in nutrients and low in calories, meaning they are an essential part of any healthy diet.
But does it matter how you eat them?
Cooking changes the structure of the nutrients in food.
For some foods, it is essential to break down dangerous toxins, but for others, it can cause a reduction in nutritional content.
Below, are five foods are healthier to eat raw:
Garlic is rich in antioxidants and a natural antibiotic to boot.
Unfortunately, heating garlic can almost entirely remove these benefits.
The enzymes which create the sulfurous compounds that provide these health gains are all destroyed at high temperatures.
So, if you are eating garlic for the health benefits, it’s much better to have it raw!
Almost everybody cooks broccoli before eating it. Cooking removes some of the bitter taste and makes it more palatable, but it also destroys some beneficial nutrients.
If you can’t handle it raw, steaming is the best way to maintain as much nutritional value as possible.
Like all cruciferous vegetables, kale is an incredibly healthy choice.
Kale contains compounds called glucosinolates that combine with an enzyme called myrosinase to give many benefits.
Unfortunately, at high temperatures myrosinase is destroyed, reducing the health advantages of kale.
#4 Bell Pepper
Bell peppers are a rich source of vitamin C.
Ounce for ounce, they have more than double the amount as in oranges.
At high temperatures, vitamin C is not stable, so the level deteriorates when cooked. Fortunately, vitamin C is relatively easy to get in your diet from other sources, but if you are eating them for the vitamin content, you should always have bell peppers raw.
Beets are a great source of both folate and manganese, as well as being rich in many other nutrients. When you cook beet a lot of these nutrients leach away, leaving around 75% of the original nutritional value.
Luckily, they are safe to eat raw, and doing so is a way to preserve the nutrient content. Throw some grated beet into a salad to get the health benefits and add color and variety to your dishes.
While cooked vegetables are still a super healthy choice, there are some cases where it’s best to have them in their natural state.
If you make the shift to eating these five foods raw at least part of the time, you are making your diet more nutritious, which can only be a good thing for your health.