Only 25 of population in US consumes recommended 2 2 cups of veggies a day Of those who do large portion of veggies are corn and potatoes Many people have negative conations with veggies Avoid uncertainty of what they will taste like think they are not good Depend on veggies to deliver so many different nutrients and vitamins Efforts have been made to increase veggie consumption What is the vegetable made up of What is its composition If you know this you will know what will happen when cooked and heated What kind of nutrients do vegetables provide Things we can t find in other foods Certain kinds of soluble fibers Reduce CVD and type 2 diabetes Possibly even some cancers Only place you will find phytochemicals are fruits and vegetables Learning all of the things to make sure how to prepare vegetables Fresh uncooked vegetables have benefits but cooking veggies in a soup means releasing some of those nutrients Cooking increases beta carotene availability Soups are a good way to introduce vegetables to people All the water soluble vitamins are captured in the soup stock When people don t feel very good the first thing you think about is soup People who don t eat vegetables miss out on a LOT of nutrients Five groups of vegetables Red orange need the most of Dark green Starchy veggies recommendations to eat lots of these Other group Legumes in two groups veggies and proteins Canned vegetables can be high in sodium off in color expired Frozen veggies can be just as good or even better than fresh Potatoes and onions make each other spoil Water on greens make them spoil Vegetables are COLORFUL TEXTURED FLAVORFUL Plants have a particular cell in them and they have cell walls the main kind of cell found in them is parenchyma Minerals things that hold color pigments When veggies are cooked the permeability is adjusted how much change is there between inside and outside of cell affects the cell Cell wall is made up of cellulose which can soften and sometimes change to a point from carbohydrate to another compound Difference from a crunchy raw broccoli to a softness Water hydrates and softens cellulose but if it has a slightly low pH lower than 6 this will impair the softening of the cellulose Broccoli won t soften while cooking if cooking with tomato sauce or something with a low pH Pigment Air trapped in the structure of the plant when added to water the air is forced out and the bright green chlorophyll pigment will become bright and seen When corn is first picked its sweet lots of sugar to it Its crisp has protopectin not turned into pectin fiber Older corn held longer at the store or on the sqtalk sugar will turn to starch and won t taste as sweet anymore It softens turning into pectin still kind of juicy When first buying a peach or plum that s firm it s hard because of protopectin but as it ripens it becomes soft because of pectin When it turns brown it goes from pectin to pectin acid where the structure starts to fall apart mushy ABC Vitamin A from beta caratone orange veggies Vitamin B folate thiamin niacin found in vegetables legumes and green Vitamin C spinach bell peppers Romain lettuce many different veggies especially raw Ca Fe Calcium and Iron Found in dark green leafy veggies and legumes Potassium There are other nutrients Chlorophyll before the chemical change Pheophyton after the chemical change Green Brussels sprouts can turn from bright green to a darker green because of a chemical reaction Anthocyanin blue ish purple when neutral pH of water dropping the pH makes it turn red Some pigments are not as susceptible to changing color Chlorophyll and anthocyanin are water soluble affected by cooking change in just plain cooking water Carotenes Colors in vegetable preparation change Pigment in white potatoes anthozanthin Flavors Changes in cooking If you cook cauliflower in plain water neutral pH it turns a pale creamy yellow color If you acidify the water the color will turn bright white If you take an onion and try to bite into a normal one raw its crispy and crunchy and it has a bite feels hot almost If you take the onion and cook it for a long time they will turn sweet caramelization process There is a ton of sugar in garlic and onion cooking it dry will caramelize the sugars Flavors change in cabbage broccoli and Brussels sprouts sulphur compounds Some veggies get sweeter Don t sense the flavor when spinach is raw but when it is cook it stays longer in the mouth and there is more taste Texture Make sure they don t get mushy or if they don t get cooked enough Want to cook potatoes until they are completely done Want beets to be cooked until they are cooked all the way through Don t make them mushy it s a texture thing IF you do drop the pH of the dish by adding acid it takes a long time to soften the cellulose that is in the vegetable have to cook it longer to soften Leaving broccoli and spinach out in the sun turns yellow because chlorophyll degrades and other colors show through White green veggies have the pigment lutein in them which is associated with immune response and participates in things that may reduce cell division cancer Strawberries lycopene Look at charts with colors Mostly what you look for when shopping is the color Chlorophyll won t be as bright until it is cooked Look for presence of mushiness bacterial growth something that could cause damage Look for yellow cast in broccoli that says its been exposed Don t want potatoes with too many eyes been sitting around for a while been exposed to too much sun If potatoes emerge from under the ground get exposed to sunlight and there is a toxic substance solinan can tell if its been exposed if there is a green cast to it bitter and can cause digestive problems The green tells you its been exposed the indicator of a bad potato Potatoes should never be exposed to the sun Don t buy the green potatoes Sometimes in the floret of the broccoli there s black pit AVOID IT Asparagus check the tips and look in the center can rot from the center and if the tips are all dried out If not using asparagus right away put the asparagus into a vase with a little water so the water goes up to the tip Bring all of your senses when you purchase vegetables especially bring your nose Tomatoes potatoes winter squash sweet potatoes need to be stored outside in a dry area just inside the room Putting the potatoes on a windowsill disrupts the process Store tomatoes stem down because stem is where most of the bacteria is If stem is down it