Many of us associate raw vegetables with peak nutrition, but there’s a surprising twist: Some foods actually offer greater health benefits when cooked.
Cooking food is not just about enhancing flavors — it can also significantly impact the nutritional value of what we eat.
While some foods are best consumed raw to preserve their nutrients, others become more beneficial when cooked. It’s true that some vitamins and minerals degrade with heat, but it’s also true that others become more bioavailable – meaning your body can absorb them more efficiently.
The debate over raw versus cooked foods is a longstanding one in the nutrition community. While raw foods retain their natural enzymes and certain heat-sensitive vitamins, cooking can boost the availability of other essential nutrients.
Understanding which foods benefit from cooking can help you make better dietary choices. Here are the most notable foods that are more nutritious cooked than raw:
1. Tomatoes
Cooked tomatoes have higher levels of lycopene, an antioxidant linked to reduced risk of heart disease and cancer. Heat breaks down cell walls in tomatoes, making lycopene more accessible.
It is important to note, however, that cooking tomatoes decreases its vitamin C content by up to 33 percent, according to research, so if you’re looking for a vitamin C boost, raw tomatoes may be your best bet.
In addition, if you burn or char tomatoes — or just about any food — it can diminish their nutrients. Be careful not to cook them on high heat.
2. Carrots
Cooking carrots enhances their beta-carotene content, which the body converts into vitamin A. This vitamin is crucial for vision, immune function and skin health.
That’s not all. When carrots are cooked, it also increases their antioxidant power. In fact, research published in the Journal of Food Science found that cooking carrots with their skins on tripled the antioxidant load.
It’s best not to pan-fry them, however, as it can actually reduce the carotenoid content.
3. Spinach
While raw spinach is packed with nutrients, cooking reduces oxalate levels, which can inhibit calcium absorption, making the calcium and iron in spinach more available.
Research also shows that cooking spinach raises the bioavailability of vitamin A, zinc, magnesium and vitamin E, among other nutrients. Steaming spinach also has been shown to reduce oxalic acid content in addition to helping it maintain its folate content.
4. Mushrooms
Cooking mushrooms increases their potassium, niacin and zinc content and enhances the availability of antioxidants. Heat helps break down cell walls, releasing these beneficial compounds.
The antioxidant ergothioneine is one that is more bioavailable when the mushrooms are cooked.
Furthermore, choosing cooked mushrooms over raw ones can help remove toxins such as agaritine, a potential cancer-causing agent found in some mushrooms.
5. Asparagus
When asparagus is cooked, it helps vitamins A, B9, C and E become more available because the heat breaks down the thick cell walls of the stalk.
Asparagus also retains considerably more antioxidants, such as ferulic acid, when cooked (by up to 25 percent). Heating up this veggie also softens the fiber, making it easier to digest.
That’s not all. Its phenolic acid increases when it’s cooked, which in turn can help combat cancer.
6. Bell peppers
Most cooking methods help bell peppers boost their vitamin C levels and enhance the bioavailability of carotenoids, powerful antioxidants that protect cells from damage. Beta-carotene, beta-cryptoxanthin, capsanthin and lutein are some of the carotenoids in bell peppers that get enhance via heating up.
Roasting them is the best option, though, because steaming or boiling them has actually been shown to lower the vitamin C content as opposed to raising it.
7. Broccoli
When you cook broccoli, it provides more indole, a compound with cancer-fighting properties. The glucosinolates and sulforaphane in broccoli also need the enzyme myrosinase to be activated in order to be converted into cancer-fighting compounds.
Steaming broccoli has been shown to preserve its myrosinase content. It also preserves its vitamin C content better than other cooking methods.
8. Kale
We all know kale as a superfood, and it certainly offers a wealth of health benefits when eaten raw. However, cooking it can also be beneficial in its own ways.
Cooking kale reduces its isothiocyanates and goitrogen content, which can disrupt thyroid function. It also makes the iron and calcium in kale more accessible, and raw kale is actually more difficult digest than when you cook it.
9. Sweet potatoes
The beta-carotene in sweet potatoes becomes more bioavailable when you cook them. This carotenoid is vital for maintaining healthy vision and immune function.
Boiling, roasting or baking potatoes also helps the starch get broken down to prevent digestive issues that can come with trying to eat potatoes raw.
That’s not all. The antinutrients in raw sweet potatoes and other potatoes are deactivated when they’re cooked, so you can absorb the beneficial minerals and vitamins they contain.
10. Green beans
If you want to get the eye-boosting benefits of green beans, you want to cook them.
Why? Cooking green beans increases their levels of antioxidants like lutein and zeaxanthin, two crucial nutrients for the eyes.
Research also shows that steaming green beans can help increase their cholesterol-lowering effects, but you want to be careful on how you cook these veggies. It’s been found that baking, microwaving, griddling and even pan-frying green beans increases their antioxidants, but that doesn’t appear to be the case when boiling or pressure-cooking them.
11. Zucchini
Like many of the other foods that are more nutritious cooked than raw, cooking zucchini provides more carotenoid antioxidants that help protect against cell damage. It also improves its digestibility.
12. Cauliflower
Cooking cauliflower increases the availability of indole and sulforaphane, compounds with potential anti-cancer properties. Steaming is the best method to preserve the nutrients cauliflower holds, such as vitamin C.
13. Eggplant
A study published in Nutrition Research revealed that when eggplant is steamed, its components bind with bile acids to allow the liver to break down cholesterol more easily. Cooked eggplant also offers more antioxidants, including nasunin, which protects brain cell membranes from damage.
The fiber in eggplant becomes more easily digestible when cooked as well, and research from 2016 shows that grilling eggplant helps it retain chlorogenic acid, which is known to have potential anti-diabetic effects thanks to its ability to slow the release of glucose.
Meanwhile, boiling eggplant retains more of its delphinidin content, another antioxidant that promotes health, and cooking eggplant also helps remove it solanine content, a toxin present in raw eggplant.
Plus, eggplant gets softer when it’s cooked, making it easier to eat, and it also helps reduce its bitterness.
14. Pumpkin
Pumpkin is another food that sees its beta-carotene content become more readily absorbed after cooking it. As noted, beta-carotene helps maintain healthy skin and vision, among other benefits.
15. Cabbage
Cabbage is another vegetable that contains goitrogen, which can be problematic for those with thyroid issues. Thankfully, cooking cabbage helps reduce the goitrogen it holds, and at the same time, it heightens the availability of its antioxidants.
16. Beets
Cooking beets enhances their antioxidant levels, particularly betalains, which have anti-inflammatory properties and can support detoxification. Beets also get the benefits of lower oxalate content when cooked, helping its minerals be more absorbable.
17. Artichokes
Cooking artichokes increases the levels of antioxidants such as quercetin and rutin, which help protect against heart disease and cancer. In fact, research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry determined that steaming artichokes increased their antioxidant load by 15-fold, while boiling them increased the antioxidant capacity eightfold.
Furthermore, microwaving them can increase their antioxidants as well, but boiling them can actually make them lose some water-soluble vitamins so you may want to avoid this cooking method.
18. Onions
Cooking onions boosts their flavonoid content, particularly quercetin, an antioxidant with anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting properties.
19. Garlic
Cooked garlic provides more allicin, a compound with potent antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties. Heating garlic can enhance its cardiovascular benefits as well.
20. Celery
Cooking celery can help enhance its levels of antioxidants such as apigenin and luteolin, which have anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties. Cooked celery also becomes easier to digest.
However, it’s important to note only some cooking methods actually help increase the nutrition in celery vs. eating it raw. Namely, microwaving, baking, pressure-cooking, frying and griddling celery increases its antioxidant capacity, while boiling it actually decreases it.
In addition to the 20 foods above, the following foods also have certain enhanced benefits when cooked as opposed to eating them raw thanks to reducing antinutrients and unlocking powerful vitamins and minerals:
