Many of us try to eat healthy. For instance, we eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. We may have a piece of fruit in the morning a few veggies with our dinner. But the real question is, do we know how to prepare these products properly so that they don’t lose their nutritional value?

Most fruit and vegetables are best when eaten raw. If you don’t have to cook a vegetable, you shouldn’t do so. Raw fruits and veggies retain the most nutritional value. There is one exception to this rule and that is the tomato. When you cook the tomato its nutritional value actually increases. Lycopene, the ingredient responsible for encouraging heart health (among many other benefits), increases greatly when a tomato is cooked. As for many other vegetables, the best preparation option is steamed. When we boil, sauté and roast vegetables, a lot of the vitamins and minerals decline or disappear all together. So be sure to steam your dinner sides whenever possible.

As for fruit, and even some vegetables, leaving the skin on is of great significance. A lot of these products inhibit their most valuable vitamins and minerals right in the peel. So before you reach for that knife and start removing that apple peel, think about all of the nourishing compounds which you are throwing out. A lot of fruit and veggies store most of their antioxidants in the skin. What these antioxidants do when we consume them is they help us fight free radicals. When we fight free radicals, we reduce our chances of developing numerous life threatening diseases, such as cancer. So the next time you are making a meal for your family, or simply looking for something to snack on, remember a few of these beneficial tips!