Vegetables: Cooking Techniques

How a fresh vegetable is prepared influences its appearance, palatability, and, to some degree, its nutritional value. Raw-food proponents claim that the enzymes present in unheated food lend it superior digestibility and bioavailability (the extent to which a nutrient can be used by the body after it is eaten). Lightly dressed salad vegetables are superb eaten raw. But many vegetables, such as winter squash, are simply more palatable cooked; others, like potatoes, are more easily digested. Cooked carrots have more available beta-carotene than raw carrots.