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Being hard of head and body, I’m a certified hunk of
health. Nutrients spring from my pores, and my nostrils flare
with vitality. My arms are so strong, my hugs are homicidal.
I owe it all to my refrigerator, the convenient cooler in
the corner of my kitchen. Without it the nutrients in my food
supply would quickly fade, putting me on a diet of dead food
that would make my flesh wilt and my skeleton eventually collapse.
It’s not hard to kill your food; in a microwave minute
you can destroy almost all of its nutritional value. With
the exception of carbohydrates nutrients lose their effectiveness
when exposed to air, heat or water, the elements that alter
their molecular structures. As the nutrient molecule becomes
“unglued,” it loses its essence; i.e., it dies.
Thus, the dark chill of a refrigerator extends the life of
food by helping nutrients keep their molecules together.
Even in a deep freeze, however, the stability of nutrients
varies from food to food. Take vitamin C, the architect of
the human body, for example. Because this vitamin, which is
also known as ascorbic acid, is the most difficult nutrient
to safeguard, its conservation is often used as an index for
the retention of other nutrients. What destroys vitamin C
usually destroys the others. Although the C is killed by brief
contact with a copper skillet or a jet of steam, it’s
retained well in citrus fruits and their juices, as well as
tomatoes.
To up your nutritional intake, practice the following guidelines:
Buying
Go for the darkest, deepest-colored fruits and vegetables.
Assuming that the color is natural, the most vivid greens,
reds, yellows and oranges indicate nutrient density. Buy the
darkest greens, the brightest vegetables and the ripest, most
colorful Fruits. Fruits are ripest when you can smell their
sweet pulp through their skins.
Cutting
As a rule the leafy parts of fibrous plants contain more nutrients
than the stems or midribs, so plan to eat the leaves. The
leaves of broccoli, for example, contain much more vitamin
A than the stalks or buds do.
On a head of lettuce the outer, coarser leaves contain more
nutrients than the inner, tender leaves. Cabbage, although
shaped the same, is different-both the core and the leaves
are high in vitamin C.
Storing
Since most greens thrive in near-freezing temperatures and
high humidity, they require prompt refrigeration. Although
cabbage retains vitamin C better than the majority of leafy
vegetables, you shouldn’t let it dry out. Wrap and store
cabbage in the crisper of your refrigerator, where high humidity
prevails.
Keep legumes in their pods as long as possible. If they’re
already shelled, seal them in a plastic bag and refrigerate.
Tomatoes should be ripened out of the sun at temperatures
from 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, not on a hot window sill
or in the refrigerator. (In summer buy tomatoes that have
been vine ripened in the sunlight; they have twice the vitamin
C as the winter, hothouse variety.) Store ripe tomatoes in
the refrigerator or in a cool room. Tomatoes lose vitamin
C rapidly when they become overripe.
Roots and tubers such as carrots and tomatoes should be kept
cool and moist to prevent withering. Store them in the crisper.
Mushrooms, which are a fungus, must be refrigerated in open
containers; otherwise they’ll blacken and become very
slimy.
Keep canned foods cool. Canned food loses only about 10 percent
of its nutrients after being stored at 65 degrees Fahrenheit,
but 25 percent when stored at 80 degrees. Because nutrients
escape through water, the liquid in water-packed cans is nutrient—rich-don’t
throw it out.
Milk must be kept in the dark and stored in opaque containers
in order for the riboflavin to survive.
And last but not least, before locking food in plastic bags,
squeeze all the air out of the bags.
Cooking
When steaming or boiling, use just enough water to keep food
from scorching and cook only until tender. Cover the pan with
a tight-fitting lid to prevent steam and water-soluble nutrients
from escaping.
The less water you use for cooking, the more food value your
cooked vegetables will retain. Larger vegetable pieces retain
more nutrients than smaller ones do, and boiling or baking
tubers—such as carrots, potatoes and yams—whole
with the skin intact yields significantly more nutrients than
cooking these vegetables skinned and cut. (The skin of an
average-size potato contains three times the vitamin C of
a Valencia orange.) Likewise for bread—a thick slice
of bread loses only half the nutrients during toasting that
a thin slice loses.
Whereas steaming plant foods under pressure in a pressure
cooker can cause a great loss of nutrients, especially if
the food is overcooked, steaming them in a microwave oven
produces the least nutrient loss.
Although animal meats shrink in size and weight when cooked,
their protein values remain surprisingly intact. Even when
the meat is boiled, not more than 10 percent of its protein
escapes into the broth.
To retain the nutrients in enriched rice, don’t rinse
it before or drain it after cooking.
Reheating
Unless leftovers are blast-frozen, refrigerating them to reheat
at a later date can cost you a lot of nutrients. For every
day that cooked vegetables sit in the fridge—and are
then reheated—they lose 25 percent of their vitamin
C.
Storing Supplements
Keep a week’s supply on hand in a cool cupboard and
store the remaining supplements in a freezer where you can
maintain a temperature of 0 degrees Fahrenheit. To reduce
air space, tuck cotton in each bottle. Cap tightly.
By Teagan Olive
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