A Fresh Look at Healthy Veggies
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| Wed, 09-01-2004 - 5:19pm |
eDiets' Vice President of Nutrition Services
September 1, 2004
When buying your vegetables, which form is best: fresh, frozen or canned? Well, in a process of elimination, there
is no contest…can the canned!
I used the U.S. Department of Agriculture's free database -- www.nalusda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl -- to analyze a cup of green snap beans three ways. The results were not surprising, knowing what I do about the nutritional value of foods.
Canned vegetables are the least nutritious. A cup of canned snap beans, cooked and drained without salt, has 1.5 grams of fiber, 24 milligrams of calcium, 13 milligrams of magnesium, 92 milligrams of potassium, 259 milligrams of sodium, 3.4 milligrams of vitamin C, and 18.2 micrograms of folate.
A cup of raw snap beans has 4 grams of fiber, 40 milligrams of calcium, 28 milligrams of magnesium, 230 milligrams of potassium, 7 milligrams of sodium, 18 milligrams of vitamin C, and 40 micrograms of folate.
A cup of cooked frozen snap green beans has 3 grams of fiber, 49 milligrams of calcium, 34 milligrams of magnesium, 126 milligrams of potassium, 9 milligrams of sodium, 4 milligrams of vitamin C and 23 micrograms of folate.
No contest here: Fresh wins hands down. And as expected, canned vegetables come in dead last. The minerals and vitamins are greatly reduced in the canning process.
Kerstin


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