Delicious cooking methods and healthy ones can actually go hand in hand

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The purpose of cooking is, on the one hand, to eliminate pathogenic microorganisms and other food safety hazards, as well as to reduce anti-nutritional factors that affect digestion and absorption； On the other hand, it aims to make the texture and taste of food more acceptable, speed up its digestion and absorption, and improve the efficiency of nutrient utilization ； At the same time, cooking can also change the flavor of food, remove unwanted odors, enhance its aroma, and stimulate appetite. No matter how good the food is, if it’s cooked in a way that makes it difficult to swallow, its nutritional components cannot be fully utilized. At the same time, cooking inevitably results in the loss of some relatively sensitive nutrients. Furthermore, cooking also introduces ingredients such as oil, salt, sugar, and flavor enhancers, which increase the calorie and sodium content of the food. The goal of healthy cooking is to achieve food safety and a pleasant taste, while minimizing the loss of nutrients; to ensure that the speed of digestion and absorption of food meets human needs; and to avoid adding excessive amounts of oil, salt, sugar, and other ingredients, so as to prevent obesity and various chronic diseases. How to retain more nutrients in food. The factors that lead to nutrient loss mainly include thermal destruction, oxidative degradation, enzymatic breakdown, water-soluble losses, and oil-soluble losses. Not all nutrients in food are sensitive to heat; proteins, fats, and carbohydrates are relatively heat-resistant, and dietary fiber and minerals do not suffer any loss due to heat. Only certain vitamins and some other components are sensitive to cooking processes. Therefore, it cannot be said that nutrients are no longer present after cooking. 1. Adding some oil to tomato and egg soup enhances the absorption of vitamins. Fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, and vitamin K, as well as fat-soluble bioactive compounds like lycopene and carotenes, are prone to oxidation and loss due to dissolution in oil. These nutrients suffer significant losses during frying, deep-frying, or cooking first by stir-frying and then by stewing; not only do they oxidize during heating, but they also dissolve into the cooking oil, remaining in the pot and dishes before eventually ending up in the drain. However, adding some oil to the soup (such as tomato and egg soup) improves absorption, as these fat-soluble vitamins are released from the plant cells when heated and cooked with oil. Various B vitamins and vitamin C, as well as water-soluble antioxidant compounds such as polyphenols, are prone to loss due to dissolution in water. During extensive boiling and blanching, these healthy components dissolve in large amounts in the water. Unless the water used for boiling the food is drunk, the longer it is cooked or blanched, the greater the loss of nutrients and phytochemicals. 2. Processes such as washing rice during transition, adding alkali when cooking porridge, etc., can lead to losses of vitamin B1. Among cereal foods, that is, staple foods, the nutrient most lost during cooking is vitamin B1. Excessive washing, discarding the water used for soaking grains, frying and deep-frying, as well as adding alkali when cooking porridge, are the main reasons for increased loss of vitamin B1. Conversely, adding whole grain ingredients such as brown rice, millet, and various legumes to rice, and eating steamed or boiled tubers like yams, sweet potatoes, and potatoes from time to time to replace some of the white rice, is a good way to increase intake of various B vitamins. 3. Vegetables are best prepared by stewing in water with oil or stir-frying over high heat. The nutrients that are lost the most during the cooking of vegetables are vitamin C and folic acid; these nutrients are sensitive to heat and oxidation, and they also tend to dissolve in water and be lost as a result. Vitamin B2 and some polyphenolic compounds are also prone to loss due to water solubility. Apart from eating it raw directly, steaming and stir-frying over high heat result in less loss of vitamins. Furthermore, replacing a large amount of cooking oil with half a bowl of water mixed with a little oil, and then stirring the ingredients in the pot before covering them and letting them simmer for one or two minutes – this \"water-oil stewing\" method also helps to preserve various vitamins; the retention rate of vitamin C can reach 80%-90%. 4. Baking fish in aluminum foil is healthier than cooking it over charcoal. The nutrient that is lost the most when fish is cooked is vitamin B1. But more importantly, it is necessary to avoid the oxidation of unsaturated fatty acids and proteins during cooking, as well as to prevent the formation of carcinogens due to excessive heating. Therefore, steaming and stewing are both good cooking methods; stir-frying meat with minimal smoke generation, as well as baking it covered with aluminum foil while controlling the temperature, are also viable options. Frying and grilling over charcoal are the least healthy cooking methods; they not only cause nutrient loss but also generate large amounts of oxidation products and carcinogens. How to make staple foods easier to digest: For staple foods, if they are too hard, it will result in a slow digestion rate, which is not beneficial for people suffering from gastrointestinal diseases or indigestion. Therefore, for people with weaker digestive abilities, whole grain foods should first be soaked in the refrigerator for 12–24 hours, then combined with white rice and cooked using the \"whole grain rice\" or \"whole grain porridge\" mode of an electric pressure cooker. They can also be baked and ground into powder before being mixed with boiling water to form a paste, or blended in a blender to create a whole grain rice paste, so as to fully absorb their nutritional benefits. How to avoid too much oil and salt: Adding too much fat during cooking significantly increases the calorie content of staple foods and dishes. Therefore, those who need to control their body fat and weight should cook with less oil, aiming to keep the daily intake of cooking oil at 25 grams or less (including the oil used in foods such as fried dough sticks and scallion pancakes). Increasing the proportion of steamed, boiled, stewed, and cold dishes can effectively reduce the amount of cooking oil consumed. For example, having one stir-fried dish, one stewed dish, one steamed dish or a cold dish per meal, along with a bowl of whole-grain rice or white rice, helps to reduce fat intake while also increasing the retention of nutrients. Reducing sodium in cooking is very important for preventing cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as hypertension. When preparing cold dishes, do not add salt for seasoning in advance; add salt just before removing the dishes from the stove. Drink less salty soup, eat less pickled foods, use less salad dressing, and limit the use of various sauces meant to be served with rice. Replace regular salt with low-sodium salt, and use less salt if chicken flavoring or monosodium glutamate is already used… All these measures can help reduce sodium intake. Written by Fan Zhihong (Director of the Chinese Nutrition Society, Vice Chairman of the Food and Cooking Nutrition Subcommittee)