Carrots are a healthy food that almost everyone knows about, but how to "eat them and turn them into nutrition" is not clear to many people. There are some common misconceptions about eating carrots in daily life, let's take a look: 1. Vegetables are more nutritious when eaten raw because the nutrients don't get lost.
Wrong. Although carrots are a vegetable, the carotenoids they contain are fat-soluble. They need to be combined with fats to be enzymatically broken down. Carotenoids are relatively stable during cooking. Basic nutrition shows that Chinese stir-frying methods can preserve 76% to 94% of them. Therefore, when carrots are eaten raw, the carotenoids are difficult to absorb without fat, leading to waste. For the same reason, stir-fried liver and deep-fried chicken liver are more beneficial for the absorption and utilization of vitamin A than boiled liver. 2. Excessive intake of vitamin A can lead to poisoning, so carrots shouldn't be eaten often.
Wrong. Excessive intake of vitamin A (from cod liver oil, or the liver of a dog that has overwintered) can lead to poisoning symptoms, mainly including loss of appetite, over-excitement, bone pain, limited limb movement, hair loss, enlarged liver, muscle stiffness, itchy skin, headache, and dizziness. Adults can get poisoned by taking more than 15,000 micrograms of retinol equivalents daily for a long time. However, after a large intake of carrots, besides the accumulation of carotenoids in the skin fat which turns the skin yellow (this disappears after stopping consumption), no other toxicity has been found. On the contrary, the anti-cancer effect of carotenoids is more valued than that of vitamin A because they also have antioxidant effects. Eating carrots regularly can reduce the incidence of lung, stomach, and prostate cancer. 3. All green vegetables and red-yellow vegetables and fruits contain carotenoids and can be a source of vitamin A.
Wrong. Indeed, they all contain carotenoids, but their biological efficacy is different. Beta-carotene has the highest efficacy, with 6 micrograms being equivalent to 1 microgram of vitamin A. Other carotenoids are less than half of that. Furthermore, zeaxanthin, capsanthin, and lycopene cannot be broken down to form vitamin A at all.
Therefore, we should pay attention to the cooking methods when eating carrots. For example, stir-fried shredded carrots, carrots and yam slices stir-fried with meat, and beef stew with carrots and potatoes can all help the human body absorb beta-carotene. Eating them raw only adds to the burden on the digestive system, so even the "little ginseng" will just "pass through" without being absorbed.