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| A roasted medley of my favorite vegetables |
Modern transportation means year round vegetables, but of course we have some concerns:
Should we get local?
Should we eat only organic?
What pesticides and herbicides are on our vegetables that might hurt our health?
What about food borne illness - the Chipotle experiment?
Roasting vegetables provides three major benefits to raw:
What about food borne illness - the Chipotle experiment?
Roasting vegetables provides three major benefits to raw:
- Cooking decreases the risk of food-borne illness
- Cooking deactivates many pesticides and reduces pesticide residue
- Cooking makes nutrients more bio-available
But the best benefit of roasting vegetables is -- FLAVOR. More than boiling, blanching, or microwaving - when you roast vegetables together - especially the recipe below- it is simply delicious.
Begin with the easy one: when you cook vegetables, especially when you roast vegetables you kill the bacteria that might be on or in them. Vegetables are the third leading cause of food-borne illness in the United States. All of those have been from raw vegetables.
Pesticides, it turns out, are chemicals that are broken down by heat. So with roasting vegetables you will be removing up to 95% of the pesticides. So heat not only breaks down the bacteria, it also breaks down some of the harmful chemicals.
While there are more vitamins in a raw vegetable than a cooked vegetable, the key is what can the human body extract from the vegetable. Multiple studies have found that when people eat cooked foods the body is better able to extract the vitamins from the vegetables. One simple experiment had people eat raw carrots, then check a blood level of vitamin A. Then the same would eat cooked carrots and check the blood level of vitamin A. Turns out cooked carrots is a better source of vitamin A than raw.
That in mind - here is how to make some simple raw vegetables into a roasted medley that will delight you.
Ingredients:
A bag of mixed vegetables
1/2 of an onion
1 lemon
6 cloves of garlic
3 T Kosher salt
3 T Olive oil
1/4 cup Chicken Stock
Begin with the easy one: when you cook vegetables, especially when you roast vegetables you kill the bacteria that might be on or in them. Vegetables are the third leading cause of food-borne illness in the United States. All of those have been from raw vegetables.
Pesticides, it turns out, are chemicals that are broken down by heat. So with roasting vegetables you will be removing up to 95% of the pesticides. So heat not only breaks down the bacteria, it also breaks down some of the harmful chemicals.
While there are more vitamins in a raw vegetable than a cooked vegetable, the key is what can the human body extract from the vegetable. Multiple studies have found that when people eat cooked foods the body is better able to extract the vitamins from the vegetables. One simple experiment had people eat raw carrots, then check a blood level of vitamin A. Then the same would eat cooked carrots and check the blood level of vitamin A. Turns out cooked carrots is a better source of vitamin A than raw.
That in mind - here is how to make some simple raw vegetables into a roasted medley that will delight you.
Ingredients:
A bag of mixed vegetables
1/2 of an onion
1 lemon
6 cloves of garlic
3 T Kosher salt
3 T Olive oil
1/4 cup Chicken Stock
Today you can get mixed bags of vegetables. They have it prepped for you - you just need to add a few different ingredients. While you can microwave these - it is more tasty to oven roast them.
You need to slice half an onion into these nice rings
Add cloves of garlic (you can take off the paper-like coating) You can crush them or just add them straight in.
Slice a lemon like this- and add to the mix
You will need to add a lot of Kosher salt to the vegetables
Extra Virgin Olive oil (use California or Arizona not European).
Then about 1/4 inch of chicken stock in the base of the dish
Place in the oven at 400 degrees and this should be done in 30-45 minutes.
This is also the basis of a "vegetable trivet" that you can put beneath lamb, or chicken, or pot roast, or any meat.
These roasted vegetables are delicious- and best of all- healthy.
Oh - in the above I had some tomatoes that were a bit old -- sliced them and added. You can add any vegetable to this mix and it will add to the flavor.
Mediterranean Diet Points
9 ounces of vegetables is worth 1 Mediterranean Diet point - and we count pre-cooked. You will see that after you cook these they all shrink and concentrate their goodness - both fiber and nutrients.
It will work out that a 1/4 plate of these will be worth 1 Mediterranean Diet point