For a long time, we have believed that whether it's vegetables or meat, it should be eaten fresh to avoid the loss of nutrients. However, some foods in this world are strange; they are not better eaten fresh, but rather after being stored for a while.
1. Wood Ear Mushrooms
Wood ear mushrooms are a common dish on the dinner table. They can be stir-fried or served as a cold salad, and eating them regularly is very beneficial to health. However, dried wood ear mushrooms are better than fresh ones. This is because fresh wood ear mushrooms contain a special substance called "porphyrin." Porphyrin is a photosensitive substance. After a person eats fresh wood ear mushrooms and is exposed to sunlight, it can cause phytophotodermatitis, leading to skin itching, and redness, swelling, and pain on exposed parts of the skin. Dried wood ear mushrooms, after being sun-dried, have most of their porphyrin decomposed, making them much safer than fresh ones.
2. Pickled Vegetables
Pickled vegetables themselves contain nitrates, so they should be eaten in moderation. But generally speaking, the highest level of nitrites in pickled vegetables appears between two to ten days after the start of the pickling process. Therefore, it is best to eat pickled vegetables after they have been pickled for twenty days.
3. Fresh Jellyfish
Fresh jellyfish contains toxins and is inedible. Only after being dehydrated several times with salt, iodized salt, and alum can the toxins be completely removed.
4. Fruits
When fruits are ripe, many orchards hold picking activities, and many people believe that fresh fruits are more enjoyable to eat. In fact, all fruits in modern orchards are sprayed with pesticides and may also have some pests and diseases. If you pick them from the branch and put them in your mouth to chew without washing, disinfecting, or peeling them, the harm is considerable.
5. Wild Vegetables
Fresh wild vegetables are rarely seen on the market now, so they seem particularly precious. But in fact, most natural wild vegetables grow near garbage dumps or polluted rivers. These wild vegetables are very difficult to clean thoroughly. If you eat contaminated wild vegetables, it can be harmful to your body.
6. Pork Liver
Some people like to eat "fresh and tender" pork liver, so when cooking, to achieve this tenderness, they often quickly stir-fry the fresh pork liver and eat it. Little do they know that this practice is very dangerous. Because the liver is an organ for detoxification in the body, if it is not heated thoroughly, some toxins can enter the body through the mouth, which in turn can induce diseases. Therefore, to make pork liver safer to eat, you should first soak it in light salt water for 2 to 3 hours, then soak it in fresh water for a while before cooking.