These Cooked Vegetables Are Healthier Than Their Raw Counterparts (2024)

Food
Healthy Meals

Attention raw-food fanatics: We're sharing healthy cooked vegetables, plus two that you should keep enjoyingraw.

Betty Gold

Betty Gold is the former senior digital food editor at Real Simple.

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Updated on May 18, 2023

Fact checked by

Emily Peterson

Fact checked byEmily Peterson

Emily Peterson is an experienced fact-checker and editor with Bachelor's degrees in English Literature and French.

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Tomatoes

These Cooked Vegetables Are Healthier Than Their Raw Counterparts (2)

While slurping a raw fresh tomato straight from the garden is one of summer's simple pleasures, cooking them offers additional benefits. "Cooking tomatoes does something remarkable to their cellular makeup," Beckerman says. "It breaks down their stubborn cellular walls so the body can mop up valuable nutrients, such as lycopene, which is a superstar antioxidant." Lycopene can help fight off colds and keep you protected during flu season.

However, not all cooking is ideal. Be careful not to burn or char your tomatoes (or any food for that matter) because cooking at a high temperature can diminish useful vitamins and minerals.

Try It: Roasted Tomatoes With Shrimp and Feta

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Carrots

These Cooked Vegetables Are Healthier Than Their Raw Counterparts (3)

Raw carrots are fine, but cooked carrots are better for you. Cooking carrots allows beta carotene, an antioxidant compound that gets converted to vitamin A in the intestine, to absorb more easily in the body, explains Beckerman. This helps your body soak up even more health benefits, like boosting your immunity and promoting eye health.

An ideal nutrition combination is carrots with an iron-rich grain, such as sorghum or buckwheat. Research shows that beta carotene significantly enhances the absorption of iron by protecting it from diminishing.

Try It: Pork Burgers With Crispy Carrot Fries

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Spinach

These Cooked Vegetables Are Healthier Than Their Raw Counterparts (4)

Contrary to popular belief, cooking spinach boosts the amount of iron in the final product when compared to raw spinach. Cooking also increases the bioavailability of other nutrients like vitamin A, E, and zinc.

As a bonus, adding vitamin C to your meal (like lemon juice or orange segments), significantly enhances iron absorption in your body. No vitamin C-rich foods handy? Get a similar effect by taking a multivitamin that has vitamin C with your meal.

Asparagus

These Cooked Vegetables Are Healthier Than Their Raw Counterparts (5)

Cooking asparagus helps to break down the thick cell walls of the asparagus stalk and helps our body absorb disease-fighting vitamins like A, C, and E. According to Beckerman, sautéing asparagus (or other veggies) in a drizzle of healthy oil (like olive oil) also helps increase the bioavailability of asparagus' key nutrients.

Try It: Fettuccine With Asparagus, Leeks, and Mint

Veggies That Are Better Raw

These Cooked Vegetables Are Healthier Than Their Raw Counterparts (6)

On the flip side, cucumber and celery are nutritionally superior when consumed raw. When cooked, celery loses certain valuable antioxidants, causing a reduction in the vegetable's nutritional value.

Additionally, a delicate antioxidant in cucumbers called fisetin—known for its anti-inflammatory, disease-fighting, and neuroprotective properties—dissolves when cooked in water.

Try It: Celery, Cucumber, and Pineapple Juice Smoothie

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Sources

Real Simple is committed to using high-quality, reputable sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts in our articles. Read our editorial guidelines to learn more about how we fact check our content for accuracy.

Raiola A, Rigano MM, Calafiore R, et al. Enhancing the health-promoting effects of tomato fruit for biofortified food.Mediators Inflamm. 2014;2014:139873. doi:10.1155/2014/139873
Ghavami A, Coward WA, Bluck LJ. The effect of food preparation on the bioavailability of carotenoids from carrots using intrinsic labelling.Br J Nutr. 2012;107(9):1350-1366. doi:10.1017/S000711451100451X
Stuetz W, Gowele V, Kinabo J, et al. Consumption of dark green leafy vegetables predicts vitamin A and iron intake and status among female small-scale farmers in Tanzania.Nutrients. 2019;11(5):1025. doi:10.3390/nu11051025
USDA FoodData Central, Spinach, cooked, boiled, drained, with salt. Accessed June 9, 2023.
USDA FoodData Central, Spinach, raw. Accessed June 9, 2023.
Lane DJ, Richardson DR. The active role of vitamin C in mammalian iron metabolism: much more than just enhanced iron absorption!.Free Radic Biol Med. 2014;75:69-83. doi:10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2014.07.007
Yao Y, Ren G. Effect of thermal treatment on phenolic composition and antioxidant activities of two celery cultivars. LWT - Food Science and Technology. 2011;44(1):181-185. doi:10.1016/j.lwt.2010.07.001
Khan N, Syed DN, Ahmad N, et al. Fisetin: a dietary antioxidant for health promotion.Antioxid Redox Signal. 2013;19(2):151-162. doi:10.1089/ars.2012.4901