How can I reduce nitrate concentration in vegetables before or during cooking?

How can I reduce nitrate concentration in vegetables before or during cooking? - Mother and Daughter Preparing Avocado Toast

Can someone tell me how to minimize nitrate concentration in raw vegetables before cooking them? I need this advice very much because I'm cooking vegetables for my infant son, and I've heard that high nitrate concentrations are especially toxic for infants.

Some say that soaking vegetables in salty water with ascorbic acid can help, is that true?

Also, is there some technique that allows to neutralize nitrates during cooking? Like, maybe, changing the water.



Best Answer

Here is a great resource for this: Nitrates, Carrots, and Homemade Baby Food.

In a nutshell, though, there really is no way to reduce nitrate content without exhaustive preparation. We're talking grinding, pressing out the juice, then heating the juice to produce leafy veggie tofu. Yuck.




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New method reduces nitrate content in spinach




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Answer 2

As was said before, it's not easily possible to extract the nitrate from produce. However, there are vegetables that contain more nitrate that others. You can look these up and use them for your baby's food. Be sure not to cook too one-sided, though; so your kid doesn't go without important nutrients that happen to come with nitrate-rich veggies.

If you grow your own food, you can harvest right before cooking. Plants contain the most nitrate in the morning, because they "eat up" their inner storage during the day.

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