Cooking May Improve Some Veggie Nutrients

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COOKING MAY IMPROVE SOME VEGGIE NUTRIENTS

Although it's trendy to munch raw broccoli, red and green peppers and

tomatoes, cooking the vegetables enhances the body's ability to absorb iron

in these foods, reducing risk of anemia, especially among vegetarians. " If

you eat a vegetarian diet, there's extra iron available to you -- and cooking

can help you get the best out of what's available, " said Tung-Ching Le, a

researcher at the Rutgers University Department of Food Science, New

Brunswick, N.J. In a presentation at the national meeting of the American

Chemical Society in San Francisco, Lee and colleagues from Taiwan studied 48

samples of fresh vegetables and fruits to determine if cooking added or

detracted from iron bio-availability -- the amount of iron that would be

absorbed by the body. Lee said that most vegetables provided more iron after

cooking than when raw. For example, he said the percentage of iron available

from green peppers increased from 16.7 percent to 32.4 percent when boiled;

cooked tomatoes increased in iron availability from 24.6 percent to 33.6

percent.

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