There are endless flavorful and satisfying methods to prepare a food as simple as potatoes. You can slice up potatoes, glaze them with salt, and deep fry them to make crispy french fries. You can bake them in the oven or microwave or you can boil potatoes to craft a well-seasoned, homey, and creamy mashed potatoes. All of these options are delicious, and comforting, but which method is healthiest?
An emerging TikTok trend, called water-based cooking, according to Women’s Health, suggests that boiling, steaming, or blanching may be healthier food-preparation methods than baking or frying which can produce a dangerous substance called advanced glycation end products (AGEs). This trend could keep your skin healthy, reduce inflammation, and may even even help you age well.
Why are AGEs Harmful?
When food is fried, roasted, or baked with added fat a chemical reaction called the Maillard reaction occurs. This process is responsible for foods like baked goods, seared steaks, and roasted vegetables achieving a satisfying, crispy, and tasty brown crust.
This browning is what makes fried, roasted, and baked foods taste so good. But, a study published in Cell Reports Medicine suggests that fat-based cooking methods may add more than just flavor. When food is cooked via these methods, proteins, fats, and sugars react to produce AGEs.
The HuffPost reports that AGEs may increase inflammation, add to oxidative stress, and weaken cells’ resilience and ability to produce energy. As a consequence, they may contribute to conditions like insulin resistance, heart disease, clogged arteries, dementia, and digestive issues.
Getting Started With Water-Based Cooking
What is water-based cooking, why does it work, and how do you get started with it?
Steaming, blanching, and boiling foods, cooking methods lacking the characteristic char, can significantly reduce AGE levels in a finished dish. For example, boiled eggs contain only one-tenth the level of AGEs that fried eggs do. Poached chicken has five times less AGEs than their grilled counterparts, and boiled vegetables have 2.4 times less AGEs than stir-fried ones.
These cooking methods may provide more benefits than just AGE reduction. In addition to making food taste delicious, they also preserve healthful compounds. Microbiome scientist, Sofia Popov, tells the HuffPost that, “Steaming helps preserve vitamin C, B-complex vitamins and cancer-fighting compounds like glucosinolates, which are all heat-sensitive.”
Women’s Health suggests that these cooking methods preserve levels of 4E-BP1, a protein linked to cellular anti-aging, in the food but more research is needed.
Water-Based Cooking Can be Delicious
Avoiding browning and charring doesn’t need to mean bland foods. To create healthy and tasty foods, try adding healthy fats, like olive oil, to a water-prepared dish. You can water-braise vegetables by boiling them with oil and then reducing the liquid until the vegetables are coated. This provides the flavor effect without harmful chemical changes.
Blanching is another flavor-preservation method that consists of boiling foods in salt water and then cooling them immediately in ice water.
High-protein foods — meats and cheeses, for example — and those high in sugar, like baked pastries, more readily produce AGEs, according to the HuffPost. Therefore cooking with lean meats and adding less sugar can keep AGE levels lower even when roasting, frying, or baking.
Marinating foods, especially in acidic compounds like tomatoes, lemon juice, wine, or vinegar can also slow browning and AGE-formation. Tasty spices like rosemary and turmeric block AGE-formation and contain anti-inflammatory compounds. Onions, garlic, and black pepper have natural moisture that cuts down on browning. Adding these flavors and components to foods can help reduce AGE-levels.
With the right spices, herbs, and cooking methods, your favorite comfort foods can be both tasty and good for your health.
