One Reason Not to Go Raw

I just had an ah-ha moment. Did you know that some greens actually provide more of a certain vitamin or mineral AFTER they are cooked? Chard is one of those and so are spinach and kale. I got this data below by going to Self Nutrition Data and comparing cooked kale's nutrients to raw kale's.

Click on the images for a closer look. Are you surprised? It looks like if you're wanting more vitamin C, go for the raw kale, but if you're looking for an even more gargantuan amount of vitamin A, go for the cooked version.

What really caught my eye was the "Inflammatory Factor" numbers. Kale is already a highly anti-inflammatory green, but look at how that factor almost doubles when cooked. I had no idea! The lesson we learn, as always? Eat more kale. Eat more greens!

Just in case you're wondering why this information matters, stress causes inflammation and a whole lot of the foods we eat cause inflammation. People who deal with chronic or acute pain issues would do themselves good to eat more foods that are anti-inflammatory. I am always looking for ways to decrease the inflammation in my joints, so discovering this little secret about kale is huge. This morning, before I even made this discovery, I had some scrambled eggs cooked with garlic, bell pepper, and kale. Guess I'll be keeping that up and creating all kinds of new concoctions with cooked kale.

Go to Self Nutrition Data and type in chard and spinach (or any other food) to check out their nutrition facts and inflammatory factor.

(Out of curiosity I just looked up dandelion greens too. Same pattern of the nutrients skyrocketing when cooked. I'm going to have to look into this some more. Any insights? What is it that increases the anti-inflammatory property in greens when they are cooked? Time for me to do some research.)