Controlling Nutrient Losses

Appears in
Professional Cooking
Professional Cooking

By Wayne Gisslen

Published 2014

  • About
Vegetables are an important part of our diet because they supply a wide variety of essential nutrients. They are our major sources of vitamins A and C and are rich in many other vitamins and minerals. Unfortunately, many of these nutrients are easily lost.
Six factors are responsible for most nutrient loss:
  1. High temperature
  2. Long cooking
  3. Leaching (dissolving out)
  4. Alkalis (baking soda, hard water)
  5. Plant enzymes (which are active at warm temperatures but destroyed by high heat)
  6. Oxygen
Some nutrient loss is inevitable because it is rarely possible to avoid all of these conditions at the same time. For example: