Interesting Article - Effects of Freezing, Drying, Cooking etc & loss of nutrients

[RawGirl4Health]

In my quest to find out about nutrient losses through various methods ie: freezing, cooking etc... I found this interesting article.. and wanted to share w/ you all. I especially found it VERY interesting that Drying often causes 50% losses in nutrients! Including 80% loss of Vit. C! Whereas cooking only causes 50% loss of Vit. C! (Of course, there are variables such as cooking time and temp, and this is specific to vitamins, rather then enzymes, which we all know are destroyed w/ cooking over 115^ +/-). Minerals do not appear to be affected by drying, but are with cooking, especially when cooked and drained. And as if cooking isn't bad enough, cooking yet again (reheating) causes even further notable losses.

Freezing, Drying, Cooking, and Reheating

Nearly every food preparation process reduces the amount of nutrients in food. In particular, processes that expose foods to high levels of heat, light, and/or oxygen cause the greatest nutrient loss. Nutrients can also be "washed out" of foods by fluids that are introduced during a cooking process. For example, boiling a potato can cause much of the potato's B and C vitamins to migrate to the boiling water. You'll still benefit from those nutrients if you consume the liquid (i.e. if the potato and water are being turned into potato soup), but not if you throw away the liquid. Similar losses also occur when you broil, roast, or fry in oil, and then drain off the drippings.

The table below compares the typical maximum nutrient losses for common food processing methods. This table is included as a general guide only. Actual losses will depend on many different factors, including type of food and cooking time and temperature.

http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/processing

[LaniB]

Interesting - it doesn't say what temperature they dry at though does it? That'd be useful to know.