Plant foods are an important source of nutrients. However, these nutrients are only useful to the consumer if they can be extracted from the plant material and incorporated into the host’s own cells. Plant cells are surrounded by cellulose and this cannot be digested by human enzymes. Therefore chewing and microbial degradation must be relied on to extract the nutrients from plant foods. One solution to this is to cook the food, as the heat degrades the cellulose and releases the nutrients into solution. The downside to this is that the heat can in certain circumstances also degrade the nutrients. This is exemplified by a study that investigated the lutein content of spinach. In the study, raw spinach contained significantly more lutein compared to cooked spinach, suggesting that the processing had degraded the lutein content of the plant tissues. This shows the fina balance and difficulty in predicting nutrient contents of plant foods and suggests that losses of nutrients from plant foods may be inevitable.
Eat Well, Stay Healthy, Protect Yourself
RdB
