Gentle Cooking Retains Vitamins
What's gained by careful buying of vegetables at the market can be lost by careless cooking in the saucepan. Vitamins and minerals have a hard time surviving certain cooking conditions, and it's wise to know how to treat those greens and other good vegetables after they come into your kitchen. Some vitamins can stand rougher treatment than others, but gentle cooking is always good advice when it comes to vegetables. Vitamin A is the sturdy member of the family, not seriously affected by cooking. Vitamins B and C, on the other hand, are subject to considerable loss, and they need a little coddling to preserve them. Cut down vitamin loss to the minimum by cooking vegetables just to the point where they're tender, and not one minute more! Mineral salts, so essential to the body's chemistry, dissolve in water, which is one of the reasons why the water you cook your vegetables in should never be thrown away. That water contains valuable calcium, needed to build sound bones a