Although off-season fruits and vegetables may have various problems, we must admit that we can no longer live without them. Since we can't live without them, it is more important to learn how to eat off-season vegetables and fruits in a safer and healthier way. To prevent pesticide residues, follow these four steps: wash, soak, blanch, and cook. Wash repeatedly; soak the vegetables in clean water for 30-60 minutes; blanch by boiling the vegetables quickly and then scooping them out, which can remove most of the residual pesticides; cook according to your dietary habits. After these four steps, the vegetables can guarantee the removal of over 95% of residual pesticides. Additionally, pesticides tend to remain on vegetables, so if possible, peel the vegetables; if not, wash them thoroughly. For cucumbers, peppers, carrots, and bitter melons, soak them in warm water with detergent for 2 minutes, then scrub with a soft brush, especially the creases, rinse with clean water afterward. If necessary, peel and wash them.
Avoid oddly shaped or overly large fruits. Large strawberries, fresh cherries... Although it's just the beginning of spring, many off-season fruits are already available in the market. However, nutritionists warn that these fruits not only have low nutritional value but may also cause significant harm to the body, especially for children who should be cautious when consuming them. When selecting fruits, try to choose certified pollution-free fruits, green fruits, or organic fruits. Be more careful with fruits that are close to their season, as they may have been treated with ripening agents to hit the market early, which generally poses some harm to the body. For example, products ripened with ethylene will appear unnaturally uniform in color, while those ripened with sulfur dioxide may have a sulfur smell. Off-season fruits far from their season are usually promoted with hormones, often having peculiar shapes. It's best to avoid overly large or oddly shaped fruits.
Peel to remove preservatives. Among similar products, give priority to locally produced agricultural products. These not only have better maturity and less loss of nutritional value but also do not require preservative treatment, resulting in less pollution and lower transportation, packaging, and refrigeration costs. Moreover, despite the high nutritional value of fruit peels, when eating imported fruits or particularly glossy fruits, remember to peel them. They are definitely waxed and very likely treated with preservatives.
Cooking too much oil, whether vegetable or animal, has the same effect. Many people fear eating meat, animal fat, and excessive fat intake, yet add a lot of vegetable oil when cooking for better taste. In fact, both animal and vegetable oils produce 37.656 KJ of heat per gram. Whether it's animal or vegetable oil, excessive intake can lead to obesity or high cholesterol, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and other "rich man's diseases" due to excessive calorie intake. Therefore, use oil in moderation when cooking, with each person consuming 25g daily, not exceeding 30g.
Improper refrigeration: cucumbers should not be below 10°C. Low temperatures can delay the spoilage of vegetables, but it's not necessarily the lower the temperature, the better. Most vegetables cannot be frozen, with an ideal storage temperature range of 3°C to 10°C. Cucumbers should not be below 10°C. If stored at around 4°C in the refrigerator, the cucumber's color will darken, the body will soften, and upon cutting, a transparent gel-like liquid will be visible, completely ruining the cucumber's fresh aroma.
Recognize vegetable varieties before eating raw. Vegetables suitable for raw consumption are naturally non-toxic and unpolluted. However, most vegetables on the market today have been sprayed with multiple pesticides. Although soaking vegetables before washing has become a habit, this method can only remove about 40% of the pesticides. Cooking further decomposes the remaining pesticides. Eating such vegetables raw can harm health, especially the outer old leaves, which are even more unsuitable for consumption. Some vegetables themselves contain toxins and must be cooked to destroy these toxins, such as green beans and broad beans.
Cooking for too long oxidizes vitamin C. Vitamin C in vegetables easily oxidizes when heated. In quick stir-frying or short heating under cover, the loss is relatively minimal. If cooked for 10 minutes, vitamin C can decrease by 60% or even more.
Not eating the soup equals discarding vitamin C. About 30% to 70% of vitamin C dissolves into the soup when cooking vegetables, so it's important to eat both the vegetables and the soup.
Not removing oxalates from spinach affects calcium intake. Everyone knows spinach contains a lot of oxalate, while tofu contains a lot of calcium. If spinach and tofu are cooked together, calcium oxalate forms, which the human body cannot absorb, affecting calcium absorption. Spinach is one of the best vegetables, rich in nutrients and brightly colored, so many people choose to stir-fry spinach alone or with other dishes. However, oxalate in spinach exists objectively regardless of the cooking method. If you don't remove the oxalate beforehand, you still ingest it when eating spinach. Oxalate in the digestive tract may bind with calcium from other foods, preventing its absorption. After digestion and absorption, oxalate enters the bloodstream and binds with blood calcium, wasting calcium already absorbed by the body. Therefore, there's no need to avoid spinach and tofu together. The correct method is to first blanch spinach (including bamboo shoots and young bamboo) in boiling water for 1-2 minutes to dissolve the oxalate in boiling water, then scoop out the spinach that has had the oxalate removed, allowing it to be cooked with anything, including tofu, without affecting calcium absorption.
Long-term vegetarianism leads to incomplete nutrition. Nowadays, some people are scared by the high incidence of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia, and cardiovascular diseases caused by high-fat, high-protein, high-calorie diets, so they only eat vegetarian food. Short-term vegetarianism for medical reasons is acceptable, but long-term vegetarianism, especially among teenagers, is harmful and offers no benefits. Plant proteins are mostly "incomplete proteins" in terms of nutrition, lacking many essential amino acids for the human body, whereas chicken, duck, fish, meat, eggs, and dairy products provide more complete proteins, lipophilic vitamins A, D, etc.
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