Is raw tomato equivalent to not eating?

Tomatoes are the food that often appears on the table of the people. Recently, many nutritionists and food scientists at home and abroad continue to publish articles on whether tomatoes are eaten raw or cooked. There are different opinions and people are at a loss.

Among vegetables, tomatoes are a very different species. It can be used as a fruit, but also as a vegetable. Although Westerners are accustomed to cooking with tomatoes, ketchup and tomato sauce, most Chinese prefer to eat cold or raw. In particular, the deep-red cherry tomatoes and red-orange tomatoes are basically used to make raw fruits.

There will be a lot of arguments: Tomatoes are eaten as they are, and vitamin C is wasted. Tomatoes are eaten raw and can not absorb lycopene. As a result, consumers are really left-handed when it comes to tomatoes, and right is also difficult. How to eat the best? May wish to look at the results of foreign studies.

Researchers at the University of Iowa in the United States have recruited a group of graduate students to do the test, allowing them to eat a bowl of vegetable salad with tomatoes, but using different salad dressings. The researchers attached a small plastic tube to their veins to collect blood samples regularly before and after eating.

The students themselves think that what they eat is almost the same, but they are similar in taste. However, the contents of salad dressings are actually quite different. Some are salad dressings that are normally 80% fat, some are low-fat salad dressings, and some simply use fat substitutes. The content of absorbable fat is zero.

However, the results of the measurements are quite different. Only when traditional salad dressings are eaten, the beneficial ingredients in the blood such as lycopene, carotene, and lutein are significantly increased, and the effect of using low-fat or fat-replaced salad dressings is poor. Thus, the researchers said that although raw vegetables are fashionable and fat-free cooking is fashionable, when eating dark-colored vegetables, it is still a bit oily.

However, this regret is not without way to make up for it. The researchers said that as long as they are fully chewed, chewed, chopped, or crushed to the end, the absorption rate of carotenoids will increase because the carotenoids will easily run out as soon as the cells are destroyed. In this sense, squeezing carrots, despite the severe loss of vitamin C, favors the absorption of carotenoids.

A study published by Spanish scientists in the Journal of Food Science is very detailed. They determined six cooking methods using 20 kinds of vegetables and compared the degree of loss of antioxidant components. Surprisingly, after cooking, the antioxidant effects of carrots increased. The loss of peas, garlic, and beets is very small no matter how they are cooked. As a result, it has been found that the cooking method that can best preserve the antioxidant component is microwave cooking, and the greatest loss is in boiling and high pressure cooking. This is not because the temperature of cooking and high pressure cooking is too high, but because the cooking is too bad, most of the antioxidants are dissolved in the water, and as a result the food inside is less. Many people will throw boiled water away after cooking, so that both nutrients and antioxidants will be lost. If the water is eaten together, the loss will be small.

This is a pretty good news. Compared with foreign cooking methods that are either raw or boiled, Chinese people's vegetable cooking habits, such as stir-fried, stir-fried or stewed, do not bring too much antioxidants to vegetables. loss.

However, people do not have to stick to the "how to eat the best" statement. As long as you like it, there is not much oil, but the heating temperature is not too high. Your favorite is the best cooking method. Because even if there is some loss, even if the absorption rate is not satisfactory, you can make up for it by eating more. And those who have not lost nutrients, such as potassium, fiber, we will get more. However, even if the eating methods that make them difficult to swallow seem to have no loss of nutrition, the final result is to eat too little.

Therefore, if you want to eat tomato as fruit, or drink it as juice, you do not have to worry about it. The key is whether the stomach becomes cold after eating and whether it will cause diarrhea. If there is no such problem, then eat it according to your appetite.