Get Better Health with Every Bite: Boost Nutrient Absorption

Here’s how to boost nutrient absorption, so you’ll get more health-boosters in every bite.

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Some health-boosting nutrients and phytonutrients get scraped into the trash. Others are wasted in the cooking water. And more are trapped inside the food waiting to be unlocked.

These don’t happen

The thought of wasting precious disease-fighting compounds in food breaks my nutritionist’s heart. Here’s what doesn’t happen when they’re lost.

• decreased inflammation
• boosted antioxidant capacity
• better insulin sensitivity
• detoxification of cancer-causing compounds
• and so much more

See why I want us to get the most we can from food?

I admit to being nutrition geeky. I mean … there probably aren’t too many people who look at a plate of berries or a bowl of lentil chili and imagine their cells and organs being pleased. You don’t have to be that weird or geeky to appreciate getting more from your food.

Below are 10 ways to boost nutrient absorption. Try some of these strategies for lifelong wellness. Some take only a few minutes.

10 Ways to Boost Nutrient Absorption

Eating a balanced and varied diet with a strong plant slant is your best defense against nutrition-related health problems. But a gazillion variables affect nutrient or phytonutrient absorption:

• how much of a given nutrient you consume at one time
• what your status for that nutrient is
• how thoroughly you chew your food
• what else you’re eating
• your medications
• your health
• the pH of your small intestine
• the types of microbes in your large intestine
• and more!

Try these 10 ways to get more nutrition from your food to fight prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and more.

#1  Cook quickly and with little water

You’ll preserve vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients in your vegetables when you cook them quickly and in as little liquid as possible.

Steaming and microwaving your green beans, broccoli, and other favorites in a small amount of water is a great way to boost nutrient absorption. Yes, definitely a small amount of water. Don’t submerge your veggies. Boiling leaches nutrients into the water, so skip that when you can, or use that nutrient-rich water in soups.

Stir-frying is another good technique because your food cooks quickly without water.

Even though oven-roasting uses high heat and longer cooking times, it’s still a great (and super delicious) way to eat your veggies, especially since there’s no water involved. If you aren’t a frequent veggie roaster, I think you’ll be surprised to learn how easy and tasty it is!

• Pro tip: don’t crowd the roasting pan.

#2  Use a little fat

Sprinkle nuts, avocado, or oil over your salad. Sauté carrots and spinach in a bit of olive oil. Or simply make sure there’s some healthful fat in your meals. Fat-soluble vitamins and phytonutrients  – like lutein in watermelon and spinach or beta-carotene in carrots – need fat to boost nutrient absorption. Your eyes will thank you for both the lutein and the beta-carotene.

#3  Pair vitamin C with non-animal iron

Too little iron causes fatigue. Adolescent girls and women through middle age tend not to consume enough iron. Though meat is an excellent source, it isn’t the only place to find iron. Plant-based sources of iron include fortified breakfast cereals, enriched bread, leafy greens, tofu, beans, and lentils. But plant-based iron is poorly absorbed without vitamin C.

It’s easy-peasy to combine the two:

• fortified cereal with berries
• chickpea salad with tomatoes and bell peppers
• leafy greens with lemon juice

#4  Eat the whole food

Whenever it’s practical, eat the nutrient-dense skins of fruits and vegetables. Also, choose whole grains often. Regularly eat intact whole grains like whole oats, quinoa, and wheat berries instead of having them only in processed foods and convenience options like cereal, bread, and crackers.

I’m not saying cereal, bread, and crackers aren’t good for you. I think they are. I think we miss some health benefits when we don’t eat whole grains that are still whole.

#5  Eat fresh when they’re freshest

The longer your fruits and vegetables sit on your counter or in the back of your fridge, the more nutrients are lost to air, light, and aging. Same for the length of time to get them from the farm to your supermarket.

#6  Embrace canned and frozen foods

Sometimes we can’t get what we want fresh or we crave the convenience of canned black beans, frozen peas, and jarred pasta sauce. They’re all good choices! Because canned and frozen fruits and veggies are picked when they’re the ripest and processed within hours, they may even have higher levels of some nutrients than fresh produce.

By the way, cooked and processed tomatoes give us more of the antioxidant lycopene. Cooking (processing) softens the cell wall, making lycopene more readily available. Your heart says “Thank you.”

#7  Chop garlic 10 minutes early

I know it sounds like a weird one! I cook with garlic nearly every day, and when I do, I make chopping or crushing garlic the first step of my recipe. Breaking the garlic apart activates its natural disease-fighting phytonutrients (studied for its role in preventing colon and stomach cancers). Unfortunately, heat instantly deactivates those same phytonutrients.

So how do we get around that?

1. Chop.
2. Let it rest for a few minutes.
3. Then heat.

Allowing the chopped or crushed garlic to sit at room temperature for just 10 minutes gives an important enzyme time to act and preserve garlic’s health boosters. Now how cool is that?

#8  Eat crucifers 1 of these 3 ways

Cruciferous vegetables – arugula, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, radish, turnips, and many others – contain phytonutrients that can be converted to other compounds, which, among other things, may decrease chronic inflammation and detoxify cancer-causing compounds.

But how we prepare these vegetables matters. Some heat is good; too much heat is not. So, try one of these 3 methods.

• Steam for up to 4 minutes, so your vegetables are still brightly colored and crispy.
• Blanch in boiling water for about 30 seconds.
• Combine well-cooked cruciferous vegetables with raw cruciferous vegetables. For example, pair cooked broccoli with a salad containing arugula or radishes.

#9  Eat a variety of fibers

Foods give us lots of different fibers. And just like vitamins, different fibers have different jobs. You can’t make up for a lack of vitamin C by consuming extra vitamin A, and you can’t make up for a lack of fermentable fibers by consuming lots of non-fermentable fibers. Some of those fibers are food for the good microbes in your gut. By eating foods with different types of fibers, you’ll get the mix you need for your gut microbes and other jobs. Among a host of other things, those gut microbes unlock disease-fighting nutrients and help us absorb minerals.

Eat fiber-rich foods every time you eat.

#10  Sit down to food you enjoy

Something you learn in Nutrition 101 is that food scraped into the garbage disposal doesn’t provide any nutrition at all. Find what you do like, so you actually eat it.

Bottom line on fruits and vegetables:

Eat lots of them. Eat them raw. Eat them cooked. Any fruit and vegetable – even if boiled to total limpness – is better than no fruit or vegetable at all.