Cooking goes off the boil
It’s always been your mum’s favourite way to cook the veg, but maybe boiling them to a pulp isn’t the best for your health.
It’s always been your mum’s favourite way to cook the veg, but maybe boiling them to a pulp isn’t the best for your health.
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| If you like your broccoli with added anti-carcinogenic properties - better not boil them! |
Professor Thornalley of the Warwick Medical School, and one of the researchers on the study said: “If you want to get the maximum benefit from your five portions-a-day vegetable consumption, and you are cooking your vegetables then boiling is out. You need to consider stir frying, steaming or micro-waving them.”
Past studies have shown that the anti-carcinogenic effects of these vegetables come from the high content of substances known as glucosinolates which are metabolised to cancer-preventive substances known as isothiocyanates.
After the effect of cooking on the glucosinolate content of vegetables by boiling, steaming, microwave cooking and stir-fry was examined the researchers found that boiling reduced the chemical the most. In fact after boiling for 30 minutes, 77% of the glucosinolate content in broccoli was lost. The other methods gave no significant loss of total glucosinolate content.
While this may change our cooking habits – the way we store vegetables looks safe. The team found that storage of the vegetables at ambient temperature and in a domestic refrigerator showed no reduction of glucosinolate levels with only minor loss after 7 days.
