It may seem when you’re considering your dietary choices, that a vegetable is a vegetable, and you’re going to get the same health benefits no matter how you eat it.
However, new evidence suggests that the way you prepare your vegetables can have a significant impact on your health. For example, roasting your spinach may produce different results than eating it raw. In fact, recent research has found that eating raw vegetables rather than cooked vegetables is associated with a lower risk of heart disease.
In a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, researchers looked at dietary information from nearly 400,000 adults in the United Kingdom, comparing this information to data on cardiovascular disease (CVD) incidence over a 12-year follow-up period. They found that raw vegetable consumption was inversely associated with CVD and death from the disease, whereas no such link existed for eating cooked vegetables.
However, it is worth noting that this association may not necessarily mean that eating raw vegetables is associated with a lower risk of heart disease.
“We observed an association between raw vegetable intake and reduced risk of CVD, but this association is confounding, especially residual confounding, such as socioeconomic and lifestyle factors,” lead author of the study, Qi Feng, PhD, Epidemiologists at the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Population Health says Eat This, Not That!. “But, we also cannot completely exclude the possibility of a true protective effect.”
Whether or not eating raw vegetables lowers your risk of heart disease, it’s a good idea to make them an important part of your diet either way.
“While this study says there is no evidence that eating more vegetables provides much protection against cardiovascular disease, that shouldn’t stop any of us from eating our vegetables,” says Cheryl Musato MS, RD., LD, clinical dietitian and author of The Nurtured Brain, says Eat This, Not That!. “Many previous studies clearly show that vegetables are valuable for good health. Vegetables are some of our best sources of soluble and insoluble fibre, antioxidants, and various vitamins and minerals, which are good for heart health, .. . Diabetes and blood pressure.”
In addition, there are other options you can make to protect your heart and take care of your overall health. For example, if you don’t want heart disease, check out these eating habits to avoid, says science.
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