Some everyday kitchen practices can downsize the nutritional value of foods.

Washing uncooked food items with surfeit of water before cooking, chopping raw vegetables into small pieces, leaving chopped vegetables on the kitchen shelf for hours before putting them on stove makes them lose a host of vitamins and minerals. You could, in equal measure, enhance the nutritional and flavour value of some foods by using some simple recipes.

Best practice for cooking rice
* Rice is a major staple in many parts of the country. Before cooking, if you wash it with generous amounts of water, you could rob rice of 40 per cent of its thiamine and niacin content.
* The way out is easy. Use as little water as possible for washing uncooked rice and leave just sufficient water in the pot before cooking so that all of it gets absorbed during the cooking process.

Getting the best out of veggies
* Many people like to chop vegetables into small pieces before putting them on the stove for cooking. That’s not a good idea.

If you’re a health buff, you must know that the longer the vegetable pieces are exposed to air, the greater is the amount of oxidation and bigger is the loss of vitamins, particularly the water-soluble vitamins.
* Chop vegetables into bigger pieces. Also, do not soak chopped vegetables in water. This leads to a loss of water-soluble nutrients. They leech out into water.

Nutritive value of fruit skins
The rampant use of pesticides on the standing crop can leave the edible fruit skins contaminated. However, it is best to consume fruits without peeling them after a thorough wash.

The writer is Senior Specialist, Safdarjung Hospital and Professor, VM Medical College and a well-known columnist