10 ways to maximise nutrients in your food: have green bananas, cook tomatoes, freeze your nuts, eat watermelon rind, and more – experts explain
- Make a plant-based diet even more beneficial by following these guidelines from nutritionists for how to eat them and what to combine them with
- Making the right choices can dramatically increase the nutritional benefits of these foods – in preventing cancer and diabetes and slowing ageing, for example
Plant foods are healthy, but are you getting all the nutrients that you can from them?
For instance, did you know that overcooking green vegetables, and storing nuts at room temperature, can take away some of their nutritional benefits. Or that, by combining certain foods, you can increase nutrient absorption with every bite?
These tips will help you supercharge your diet and make the already healthy foods you eat even more healthy.
1. Cook your tomatoes
Cooking tomatoes can increase the benefits of the lycopene they contain – a type of carotenoid which gives tomatoes their bright red hue.
“Lycopene is an antioxidant that protects your tissues, cells and DNA from damage caused by oxidative stress,” says Katia Demekhina, a nutritional therapist at the Integrated Medicine Institute in Hong Kong.
“When tomatoes are heated, lycopene is released from the fibres, making it more available for your body. Plus, the concentration of lycopene increases due to water loss during cooking.
“Consuming cooked tomato products rather than fresh tomatoes can help increase the intake of this antioxidant.”