Nancy Dell: Raw vs. Cooked Veggies; Reduce muscle soreness from exercise

CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) -  

1. Are raw vegetables more healthful than cooked?
Lindsay, Internet

It is most important to eat your vegetables whatever way you like them so you get them into your body.

Raw vegetables can have more vitamin C and B vitamins but cooking something can provide more of some other components in the plant.

When you cook a tomato you may have less vitamin C but more lycopene. Lycopene can help reduce the risk of prostate and skin cancer. Cooking carrots makes it easier for your body to absorb the betacarotene.

If you have irritable bowel syndrome or Crohn's disease, you can digest the cooked vegetables more easily. If you are prone to oxalate containing kidney stones, boiling vegetables like spinach, swiss chard and beets releases the oxalates into the water reducing the oxalate in the vegetable so you can eat them.

How are grilled vegetables? You do want to be careful of grilling vegetables. Charring food forms compounds that can increase your risk of cancer. It is better to roast vegetables than to grill.
 
2. How can I reduce muscle soreness after a hard workout?
Tom, Feeding Hills               

According to experts at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, tart Cherry juice can help your muscles recover from a tough workout. 

Athletes who drink about 20 ounces of tart cherry juice have a faster recovery, have more strength between bouts of exercise and have less of what is called "delayed onset muscle soreness" or DOMS. That is the soreness that occurs a day or 2 after exercise.

Twenty ounces of tart cherry juice is equal to 90 tart cherries and has about 260 calories. Tart cherry juice may also help you sleep better, according to a study in the European Journal of Nutrition.

The study says just 1 ounce twice a day provides melatonin a hormone that regulated your sleep cycle. So if you use it for sleep, sip the 2 ounces at night.