The Best Way to Cook Your Vegetables

If you've been following author Michael Pollan's simple eating philosophy—"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."—you're trying more than ever to incorporate vegetables in your diet. What you may not know, however, is how to best prepare those vegetables so you're getting the most nutritional value. From the New York Times:

"There is a misperception that raw foods are always going to be better," says Steven K. Clinton, a nutrition researcher and professor of internal medicine in the medical oncology division at Ohio State University. "For fruits and vegetables, a lot of times a little bit of cooking and a little bit of processing actually can be helpful."

Though the article emphasizes that no cooking method is best, it does explain the trade-offs you make when you make the decision to cook or not to cook. For example, boiling carrots increases carotenoid levels while decreasing polyphenol. Often you can cook better with your microwave than your stove, and—according to the article—microwaving can retain more vitamin C than other methods. You don't have to weigh the health options every time you decide to prepare a vegetable—you're eating vegetables, after all, which is already healthy—but do know that variety in your preparation methods is advantageous. Let's hear how you prefer to prepare your veggies in the comments.