When you boil vegetables, they extract their color together with their minerals, vitamins and potential nutritional value. Today nutritionists are observing that uncut vegetables such as carrots are more nutritious than boiled carrot slices, because the nutritional value is locked into the whole vegetable.

A research by the British Newcastle University Schools of Agriculture, Food and rural development found that boiling the whole carrots increased the amount of carrots anti cancer properties in the form of a polyacetylene compound called falcarinol by 25 per cent. This research and others carried out at Limerick University in Ireland have confirmed that polyacetylene may have more anti cancer properties than beta carotene. It is a non nutrients element that have powerful effects in deterring major illnesses.

It has previously been assumed that the heat used in cooking vegetables degrades the nutrients, and the fact that raw vegetables are healthier than cooked ones, but the carrot example means that the nutrients in carrots are enriched in cooking. It is understood that these compounds are not water soluble and they do not leach away. Whilst carrots lose vitamins and minerals in the cooking process, they have increased levels of phytochemicals. The heat kills the cells in the carrot during cooking so they lose the ability to retain the water inside them and this increases the concentration of falcarinol in the carrot. When the cell walls break down the vitamin C and sugars are lost because they are water soluble.

This research has been supported by researchers from Cornell University in America; they researched tomatoes and found the same thing. The phytochemical lycopene increases after cooking though the minerals and vitamins have decreased. These facts alone means that it is even more important to eat fresh fruit and vegetables rather than from supplements. It is suggested that you should utilize the water that is used to cook vegetables in a sauce, or add it to a soup, or just to drink it so that the lost nutrient content is drunk in the water.

Cooking the carrots whole change more. The phytochemicals, apparently less of the natural sugars found in carrots are lost when they are cooked whole and they actually taste even better as well. Eighty percent of people tested in Ireland in a blind tasting of the boiled then cut and the cut then boiled carrots preferred the taste of those that were cooked whole.

The initial study into falcarinol in carrots found that rats fed on isolated falcarinol and raw carrots developed less full scale tumors than the control group who had no carrots in their diet. In fact they developed a third less tumors than the control group.

Roasted Carrot Soup

Ingredients

1 kg Carrots, whole and unpeeled 1 Onion, halved, quartered 200g Sweet Potato, 1 head of Garlic, whole 5 Cups fresh Chicken Stock 1 inch of fresh ginger 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground Nutmeg 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil Sea Salt to taste Freshly Ground Black Pepper Optional garnish Pumpkin seeds.

Direction

Preheat the oven to 180C /350F. Arrange the carrots, onions, sweet potato, ginger and garlic in a baking tray. Drizzle olive oil over them and season. Roast the vegetables for about 45 minutes to an hour. Squeeze the garlic out of the shells and peel the carrots if you want them peeled, but they can be used as they are, because all the nutrients are just under the skin. Place in a large saucepan and add the chicken stock, nutmeg and simmer for about then minutes. Either puree or roughly mash the carrots

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Tags: Fitness and Health, preventing cancer, vegetable and cancer

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