Are carrots healthier cooked? Or raw?!
Are carrots healthier cooked? Or raw?
Since boiling takes nutrients out, but my mom says otherwise.
Answers:
This is straight from my doc:
You should cook carrots until they are soft on the outside but not floppy. Coating them with stuff like maple syrup or brown sugar makes them very bad for you obviously. The problem with raw carrots (or any raw veggies) is that your body spits them out before processing them properly. Any raw veggie is hard to digest and break down. Eating tons of raw veggies is harsh on your digestive system so you should lightly steam them first and scrub them to get any dirt off.
Just like with most fruits alot of the nutrients are in the skin of the carrot so when people say the "nutrients" have been boiled out by cooking them its because they have peeled them and sliced them first.
An interesting factoid: Eating carrots really has no affect on your vision (its a common myth that carrots make you see better) but eating a bunch of carrots in a short period of time can actually turn you orange just like shrimps make flamingos pink. The betacarotne seeps out through your skin. Don't do this because you can make your self sick overloading on the betacarotne but its pretty cool to know you can.
They are the most nutritious raw or steamed.
=]
probably raw then u wouldnt have to worry about taking out stuff like nutrients
cooked
Carrots are one of the best sources of carotene which is a strong antioxidant. But carrots also contain other phenolic compounds that are antioxidants. The Arkansas researchers were studying the effects of thermal processing (cooking) on the antioxidant properties of carrots. The carrots (peeled or non-peeled) were sliced and blanched (2 minutes or 20 minutes), cooked in cans at 250 oC for 75 minutes and then stored for up to 4 weeks. In all cases the antioxidant power of the processed carrots was greater - on average 34% higher - than for raw carrots. During the first week of storage the antioxidant properties continued to climb, before declining over the next 3 weeks in storage. At the end of the 4 weeks the processed carrots still had more oxidative power than raw carrots.
It is difficult for the body to digest and absorb the nutrients in raw carrots so lightly cooking them is your best bet even though it does deplete some of the nutritional value
Raw or steamed. Boiling does take out nutrients.
raw
They're healthier raw. This way the nutrients are not cooked away. They're still healthy cooked, but raw is best.
cook it in "vapor" or in oven...
the cooking is necessary to liberate betacaroten and other phenolic compounds from the "fibers" on which they are strongly binded.
boilling then remove the soluble nutrients, wich are actually the oligoelements...... so with the water where you boiled it, yopu can make a soup.... and you don't lose these precious small things..
RAW....or steamed if ya like them that way....