For the Best Benefits, Don't Boil Vegies!

Boiling vegies like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and cabbage robs them of their cancer-fighting properties, according to new research.

Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are known as "cruciferous" vegetables because their four-petal flowers resemble crosses. All these vegetables have good records as cancer fighters because they’re rich in plant chemicals called phytochemicals.

These chemicals are thought to help prevent, stop or reverse the development of cancer cells.

Eating these cruciferous vegetables can help decrease the risk of cancer. But, before this latest study, it wasn’t known how the cancer-fighting substances in vegetables were influenced by different methods of storing and cooking.

Off the boil
Researchers bought broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and green cabbage from a local store and transported them to their lab within 30 minutes. They then studied the effect of boiling, steaming, microwave cooking or stir-frying the vegetables, on their cancer-fighting qualities. Boiling robbed the vegetables of their cancer-fighting ability more than any other method.

After boiling for 30 minutes the loss of total cancer-fighting substances was:
• broccoli 77 per cent;
• Brussels sprouts 58 per cent;
• cauliflower 75 per cent; and
• green cabbage 65 per cent.

Other cooking methods were: steaming for up to 20 minutes, microwave cooking for up to three minutes and stir-frying for up to five minutes. None of these methods resulted in a loss of the cancer-fighting substances in the vegies over these cooking times.

Storing the vegetables at room temperature or in a normal refrigerator did not result in a loss of their cancer-fighting ability. Finely shredding the vegetables reduced the cancer-fighting substances by up to 75 per cent in some cases.

The take home message for households is that in order to get the maximum benefit from eating the recommended five portions of vegetables everyday, then don’t boil your vegies! To preserve their cancer-fighting properties, stir-fry, steam, or microwave them instead.

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