Steaming kale = loss of nutrition?
Hi y'all. I've searched a bit for this but can't find an answer. Following a suggestion on veganyumyum.com, I always make my hummus with kale in it. I steam the kale, then shock it with cold water, then toss it in the food processor with my other ingredients. It's a subtle taste, not very noticeable but pleasant, and after all kale is so healthy.
But it really bugs me that when I pour out the water after steaming and shocking, it's so green... it looks like so much goodness is flowing down my drain. Does anyone know if I'm really losing much nutrition this way? If so, is it just the steaming, or is the shocking part bad too? I could probably do it without shocking, but I'd be surprised if that made much difference to the nutritiousness of the kale. If I am losing goodness this way, how can I keep it? Raw kale might be an option if I had a vitamix, but with my rinkydink processor it'd be super tough and rubbery in the hummus, I think. Any thoughts?
I usually just rinse my kale and stick it in a pot and turn the heat on. the water on the kale is enough to steam it!
your definitely losing some of the nutrients, but really, i wouldn't worry about it.. unless the only reason you are eating the kale is for it's nutritional content (then i would say eat it raw. but really, who likes raw kale?). i have actually heard steaming can be the worst way to retain nutrients because it cooks for the longest (relative to blanching, etc.) and that microwaving for a minute actually retains a lot of nutrients. i am not positive about this but it was info from a nutrition professor i had so depending on how much you want to rely on the words of one person...
Ok, thanks Baypuppy and Secondbase, I will try using less water in the future. I could probably steam it not quite as long as well. And hey, i didn't think of this till now, but I could also steam it above the water rather than sitting in the water, with a colander or a steamer-thingy.
That's interesting Hespedal, I can see where microwaving might be less nutrient-sapping than steaming, I'll look into that. The stuff I've seen online so far has said that steaming is at least much better than boiling, but I haven't seen info on microwaving.
I could a little, Tofuttibreak, but on account of the shocking there's way too much water to add it all... I could add maybe a twentieth of it.
If your name is referencing what I think it's referencing, lol, that was the first place I ever heard of tofutti... i've had a hard time taking the stuff seriously ever since
although i guess an inability to "take tofutti seriously" probably isn't that big of a problem...
I love this site: http://www.nutritiondata.com/
Kale is a good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and Manganese. Vitamin C is heat/cooking senstitive, but you keep over half of it and you increase the amount of bioavailable Vitamin A.
1 cup kale, raw 1 cup kale, boiled
Vitamin A - 6182 mcg 10626 mcg
Vitamin C - 80.4 mg 53.3 mg
Manganese - 0.5 mg 0.5 mg
Kale is a good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and Manganese. Vitamin C is heat/cooking senstitive, but you keep over half of it and you increase the amount of bioavailable Vitamin A.
Crazy, I'd never have guessed that. I guess I need to weigh my vitamin C needs against my vitamin A needs ???
heh heh, that isn't steaming ;) that is more like... steam-boiling. your post makes a lot more sense. i did the steam-boil for a bit and whenever was on the bottom would be overdone and the top would be okay. the steamer tray makes a big difference!
i'll go sew a scarlet n for 'noob' on my cooking apron... then i'll go buy a steamer tray. ::)
'scuse me if I pimp my own recipe (OK, it wasn't mine really, but it's used with permission), but all this fuss about losing nutrition by cooking prompted it.
http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=16974.0
Kale is not tough and rubbery when raw, neither are collard greens. It's all in how you prepare them.
I love this site: http://www.nutritiondata.com/
Kale is a good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and Manganese. Vitamin C is heat/cooking senstitive, but you keep over half of it and you increase the amount of bioavailable Vitamin A.
1 cup kale, raw 1 cup kale, boiled
Vitamin A - 6182 mcg 10626 mcg
Vitamin C - 80.4 mg 53.3 mg
Manganese - 0.5 mg 0.5 mg
I love that website too.
But... if you think about it, it takes way more than 1 cup raw kale to make 1 cup cooked. I'd say it takes at least two. So, you're actually losing a LOT of nutrients. Additionally, nutritiondata doesn't measure bioavailable nutrients (how do you test for that?) but just if they're there. For instance, spinach appears to have a good amount of calcium, but since it is carbonate it is not really bioavailable.
Also, using the kale-water for your hummus would be better, but it's not just about the vitamins/etc being leeched into the water, but heat destroying the nutrients with or without water. Supposedly, since it cooks in the least amount of time, deep frying retains the most nutrients on vegetables O_o...
Personally, I eat raw kale (on my salads). I think a lot of greens actually don't taste as strong raw, though kale is, admittedly, a tad spiny.
Good catch about the volume of cooked and raw. I wasn't thinking about the volume when I typed.
Correction: If it's 2:1, you retain about a third of the vitamin C when boiling. Since it's heat sensitive, I'm not sure if steaming would save more or not. I would suspect it would because Vit. C is also water soluble and when steamed it's not sitting in the water. I don't know for sure, though.
I still think more vitamin A is bioavailable. Heating fat soluble vitamins weakens the protein-vitamin complex, so our bodies absorb more.