Is Frying Vegetables Actually Healthier for You?

Finally, we have an excuse to turn all our vegetables into delicious deep fried snacks.

What if we were to tell you that deep-frying vegetables actually makes them healthier?

And the best part is, these antioxidants are highly important in reducing the risk of cancer and type 2 diabetes, The Daily Meal reports.

Researchers from the University of Granada (UGR) unveil how vegetables like potato, pumpkin, tomato, and eggplant can be cooked in such a way as to increase their phenolic fraction.

Recent studies have shown the benefits of a Mediterranean diet which relies heavily on vegetables and EVOO and that it leads to a lower risk of heart diseases, strokes and cardiovascular problems.

In what may be the single greatest bit of scientific news of this century, a new study has found that frying vegetables in extra-virgin olive oil actually gives them health benefits that other cooking methods, like boiling, do not. From the resulting food, the phenol content was measured using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

The secret? Cooking them in extra virgin olive oil, which contains “at least 30 phenolic compounds”.

It seems to be all about the olive oil, which adds something called phenolic compounds to the cooked vegetables.

Vegetables prepared with olive oil contained phenols not identified in the raw forms. In other words, the cooking process improves the quality of the raw foods.

Although all three cooking methods were found to an increased level of antioxidant capacity in all vegetables, the final levels of phenols varied after cooking them in various ways. Even the researcher, Cristina Samaniego Sánchez admitted that while frying in EVOO increased the amount of phenols more than any other cooking method, it did also increase the calorie density of the food.

Any raw vegetable that started with a high level of phenols had its phenolic content boosted further by the use of EVOO in cooking, suggesting that frying and sautéing should be used not only to conserve the goodness, but also to enhance it.

The scientists also mentioned that pressure cooking, especially when EVOO is used, is beneficial, as long as the cooking water is consumed.