Don’t Overcook Your Vegetables

Vegetables rich in vitamin C can help shorten and lessen cold symptoms. But if you cook them too long, you lose the cold-busting qualities. It all depends on how you cut them (smaller pieces are worse), cook them (more time and water is worse) and eat them (the sooner the better).

Here’s how much of the original vitamin C is left after vegetables are prepared in the following ways, from “Nutritional Evaluation of Food Processing,” edited by Robert S. Harris and Endel Karmas:

Spinach: 1 cup boiled in 1 cup of water, 63 percent; 1 cup boiled in 2 cups of water, 36 percent.

Broccoli: Steamed, 79 percent; stir-fried, 77 percent; boiled with a small amount of water in a covered pot, 74 percent; microwaved, 57 percent; boiled, covered with water, in uncovered pot, 45 percent.

Potato: Baked, 80 percent; boiled, 53 percent (boiled potato kept in refrigerator for one day, 29 percent; boiled potato kept in refrigerator for three days, 5 percent); mashed, 23 percent.