And they taste good too! My particular favorite is a combination of yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, onion and tomato. We use lemon pepper to add some zest to it.
Laboratory Equipment
Wed, 01/20/2016
University of Granada
A new UGR study, published in the journal Food Chemistry, reveals that vegetables fried in extra virgin olive oil have more beneficial properties than their boiled counterparts.
It is often thought that when we cook raw vegetables in certain ways and using certain cooking techniques, their antioxidant properties, such as the phenolic compounds, are to some degree lost or destroyed.
The aim of the study was to put domestic cooking techniques to the test and determine how they affect and/or enhance the antioxidant qualities and amounts of phenolic compounds found in four fresh vegetables that are representative of the Mediterranean diet, namely; potato, pumpkin, eggplant and tomato.
Three cooking techniques were employed: 120gm cubes of the vegetables were fried in EVOO, or boiled in water, or boiled in a mixture of water and EVOO. The experimental procedures were strictly controlled, with invariable proportions of the vegetables and the cooking mediums maintained throughout the analyses.
The vegetables were also kept in optimum conditions in order to accurately measure their moisture, fat, dry matter and phenol contents, along with their antioxidant capacity, before and after each cooking method was employed.
The researchers found that frying vegetables in extra virgin olive oil produces higher levels of natural phenols, antioxidants that have been linked to the prevention of chronic degenerative diseases such as cancer, diabetes and macular degeneration.
“While comparing the total phenol contents of the fresh vegetables, we found both increases and decreases in their levels, depending on the cooking method employed," explains Cristina Samaniego Sánchez, one of the authors of the work. "As a heat transfer medium, the EVOO increases the amount of phenols in the vegetables, in contrast with other methods such as boiling, which use a water-based heat transfer medium.”
The results show that the overall quality of these vegetables is substantially improved when they are fried in extra virgin olive oil. This occurs because the vegetables are enriched with EVOO phenols transferred from the oil, which otherwise would not be present.
“We can conclude that frying in EVOO was the technique with the highest associated increases of phenols and can therefore be considered an improvement in the cooking process, although it also increases the calorie density of the food because of the amount of oil absorbed”, points out Samaniego.
“If the concentration of phenols found in the raw ingredients is high to start with, the overall concentration level is further increased if EVOO is employed during the cooking process, while boiling does not significantly affect the concentration levels. Boiling is recommended if the vegetables are to be consumed together with the cooking medium (i.e. the water).”
The research findings have significant implications for food science and nutrition, and may re-shape the way perceive so-called “healthy” and “unhealthy” ways of preparing the food we consume, while we simultaneously strive to stay within the limits of healthy calorie intakes.
Laboratory Equipment
Wed, 01/20/2016
University of Granada
A new UGR study, published in the journal Food Chemistry, reveals that vegetables fried in extra virgin olive oil have more beneficial properties than their boiled counterparts.
It is often thought that when we cook raw vegetables in certain ways and using certain cooking techniques, their antioxidant properties, such as the phenolic compounds, are to some degree lost or destroyed.
The aim of the study was to put domestic cooking techniques to the test and determine how they affect and/or enhance the antioxidant qualities and amounts of phenolic compounds found in four fresh vegetables that are representative of the Mediterranean diet, namely; potato, pumpkin, eggplant and tomato.
Three cooking techniques were employed: 120gm cubes of the vegetables were fried in EVOO, or boiled in water, or boiled in a mixture of water and EVOO. The experimental procedures were strictly controlled, with invariable proportions of the vegetables and the cooking mediums maintained throughout the analyses.
The vegetables were also kept in optimum conditions in order to accurately measure their moisture, fat, dry matter and phenol contents, along with their antioxidant capacity, before and after each cooking method was employed.
The researchers found that frying vegetables in extra virgin olive oil produces higher levels of natural phenols, antioxidants that have been linked to the prevention of chronic degenerative diseases such as cancer, diabetes and macular degeneration.
“While comparing the total phenol contents of the fresh vegetables, we found both increases and decreases in their levels, depending on the cooking method employed," explains Cristina Samaniego Sánchez, one of the authors of the work. "As a heat transfer medium, the EVOO increases the amount of phenols in the vegetables, in contrast with other methods such as boiling, which use a water-based heat transfer medium.”
The results show that the overall quality of these vegetables is substantially improved when they are fried in extra virgin olive oil. This occurs because the vegetables are enriched with EVOO phenols transferred from the oil, which otherwise would not be present.
“We can conclude that frying in EVOO was the technique with the highest associated increases of phenols and can therefore be considered an improvement in the cooking process, although it also increases the calorie density of the food because of the amount of oil absorbed”, points out Samaniego.
“If the concentration of phenols found in the raw ingredients is high to start with, the overall concentration level is further increased if EVOO is employed during the cooking process, while boiling does not significantly affect the concentration levels. Boiling is recommended if the vegetables are to be consumed together with the cooking medium (i.e. the water).”
The research findings have significant implications for food science and nutrition, and may re-shape the way perceive so-called “healthy” and “unhealthy” ways of preparing the food we consume, while we simultaneously strive to stay within the limits of healthy calorie intakes.