Experts suggest the following methods for eating vegetables raw: persist in drinking fresh, homemade vegetable juice daily. Serve fresh vegetables cold, optionally adding vinegar and using less salt.
According to Chinese custom, most vegetables are cooked before consumption, whereas in Western diets, most vegetables are eaten raw. From a nutritional and health perspective, it is better to eat vegetables raw.
The benefits of eating vegetables raw lie in the maximum preservation of vitamins and trace elements. The vitamins, carotene, and volatile oils in vegetables can stimulate resistance and enhance the phagocytic function of immune cells.
Raw vegetables can help prevent cancer. Many vegetables contain an interferon inducer, which stimulates the body's normal cells to produce interferon, which in turn creates an antiviral protein. This function can only be achieved when the vegetables are eaten raw. The antiviral protein can inhibit the growth of cancer cells, effectively regulate the body's immune system, and activate macrophages, thus playing a role in cancer prevention and treatment. For example, radishes contain an interferon inducer. The specific method is to eat 15 grams daily, chewing slowly, once a day, over a long period. This provides a good opportunity for teeth to chew.
Eating vegetables raw helps with oral and dental health. Chewing thoroughly stimulates the secretion of saliva, aids digestion, and enhances the self-cleaning function of the mouth, which is especially important for the elderly.
It has therapeutic or adjuvant therapeutic effects on various diseases. Extensive practice has proven that "raw food therapy" is beneficial for insomnia, listlessness, memory loss, high blood pressure, and fundus hemorrhage. Eating 1-2 fresh tomatoes on an empty stomach every morning has an adjuvant therapeutic effect on patients with heart and brain diseases; for a sore throat, one can chew green olives or green radishes.
Experts suggest the following methods for eating vegetables raw: persist in drinking fresh, homemade vegetable juice daily. Serve fresh vegetables cold, optionally adding vinegar and using less salt. Vegetables like carrots, cabbage, beets, and cauliflower can be consumed after being crushed and fermented to produce active enzymes. The benefit of cooked vegetables is that it is conducive to the absorption of carotene.
Dark green and yellow vegetables are rich in carotene and are better eaten cooked. For many carotene-rich vegetables, stir-frying with oil or cooking in broth significantly increases the absorption and utilization rate of carotene. Cooking greatly reduces the volume of vegetables, making it easy to consume about 300 grams of vegetables in a single meal. If eaten raw, the large volume and poor taste make it difficult to meet the daily standard for vegetable intake, thereby limiting the supply of nutrients. It should be noted that while vitamin C is easily destroyed in cooked vegetables, other relatively stable nutrients (such as calcium and iron) and a large amount of dietary fiber are not lost due to heating. The loss rates of nutrients like carotene and vitamin B2 are also relatively low during general cooking, and these important nutrients can still contribute to human health after being cooked.
During the growing process, vegetables are inevitably contaminated by pesticides and fertilizers to varying degrees due to soil, water, and environmental pollution. The advantage of eating cooked vegetables in terms of hygiene is self-evident and beneficial to health.
The vitamin C, folic acid, and biologically active substances with antiviral and anticancer effects in fresh vegetables are easily destroyed by heat. When cooking, the principle of "high temperature for a short time" should be followed to protect nutrients and kill pathogenic bacteria. Adding salt just before turning off the heat reduces the loss of vegetable juices, and adding a small amount of vinegar or tomato pieces to cooked dishes can increase the retention rate of vitamin C.
Whether eating raw or cooked, attention must be paid to hygiene, and they should be consumed as soon as possible. In real life, many people, especially the elderly, like to buy large quantities of cheap vegetables at the end of the market day and store them for three to five days, causing the originally fresh vegetables to wither and turn yellow. They know such vegetables should not be eaten in large quantities, but they are reluctant to throw them away. What they don't realize is that frequently eating such vegetables is not only nutritionally poor but can also endanger health. This is because vegetables contain a substance called nitrate. Although nitrate itself is non-toxic, it can be easily reduced to nitrite after a period of storage. When nitrite combines with certain protein substances in the body, it can easily lead to the canceration of normal cells, thereby harming human health.
Therefore, it is recommended not to buy large quantities of vegetables at once; a quantity for one or two days is appropriate. This can prevent the formation of carcinogens during storage and minimize nutrient loss.