Heat Treatment And Vitamins: How High Temperature Affects The Beneficial Properties Of Products

Heat treatment of products destroys vitamins. How high temperature affects vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, B9, C, D, E, PP. How to preserve the benefits of products after heat treatment

Heat treatment of products is necessary to improve their taste, softening, destruction of harmful microbes and toxins. Obviously, boiled, fried, baked or stewed food is safer than raw and will save you from indigestion. But what about vitamins that are destroyed under the influence of high temperature?

How do vitamins tolerate heat treatment?

• Vitamin A. Contained in liver, garlic, butter, broccoli, seaweed, carrots, tomatoes, green onions and dill. Heat treatment destroys up to 30% of its biological properties. Vitamin A is destroyed especially intensively during frying, drying under the influence of ultraviolet rays. It is well preserved when sterilizing products at a temperature of up to 120 degrees.
• Vitamin B1. Contained in oatmeal, millet, pork, liver, buckwheat, pasta products. Especially sensitive to cooking (loses up to 45% of benefits), frying (up to 42%) and stewing (up to 30%). Loses activity at temperatures above 120 degrees.
• Vitamin B2. Contained in liver, mushrooms, chicken eggs, goose. If you cook the listed products, you will lose up to 43% of the beneficial properties, so other cooking methods are better (only 10% of the biological activity of the vitamin is lost when stewing).
• Vitamin B6. Contained in beans, tuna, mackerel, sweet pepper, chicken, spinach, white cabbage. This vitamin is really resistant to the effects of high temperature, and the jam of the listed products is even useful, because this is how B6 releases its active components.

You will be interested: Vitamins for fatigue

• Vitamin B9. It is found in liver, beans, spinach, broccoli, barley groats, porcini mushrooms and porcini mushrooms. It does not tolerate any heat treatment, losing up to 90% of its properties. Losses of this vitamin during cooking and preservation are especially significant.
• Vitamin C. Contained in rose hips, sweet pepper, cabbage, oranges, lemons, garlic, spinach. It is not for nothing that these products are most often eaten fresh: by boiling cabbage, we lose up to 90% of the vitamin, and stewing destroys it by 50%. Each subsequent heat treatment of the finished dish reduces its vitamin C content by 30%.
• Vitamin D. Contained in sea bass, liver, chicken eggs, butter. It tolerates heat treatment well, if the temperature does not exceed 100 degrees. It is destroyed in many ways due to exposure to oxygen, so it can easily withstand sterilization of products.
• Vitamin E. Contained in rose hips, salmon, pike perch, wheat, dried apricots, prunes, oat and barley groats. It is practically not destroyed under the influence of high temperature, but suffers from direct sunlight.
• Vitamin PP. It is found in poultry, rabbit, beef, fish and liver. Perfectly tolerates any heat treatment, canning and freezing. The listed products will lose from 5 to 40% of the beneficial properties of the vitamin, no matter how they are prepared.

How to preserve the beneficial properties of products?

In order not to lose all the vitamins during cooking, control the temperature: it should not exceed 100 degrees. This will destroy pathogenic microorganisms, but preserve the biological properties of products.

Heat treatment time should be shortened as much as possible. Steam or bake vegetables. Do not cut them too finely, do not use a grater or blender - it is optimal if the products are cleaned and cut before use.

Every subsequent heating of the dish reduces its benefits. Try to cook for one meal in order not to freeze the products and not to store them for too long.