Spear the cooking

Broccoli is vitamin- and nutrient-rich but go easy on the type and length of cooking.

- JENNIFER BOWDEN

QUESTION:

I enjoy broccoli, either raw in salads or lightly cooked in the microwave. Is there a difference in the nutrition between raw and the lightly-cooked vegetable?

ANSWER:

Broccoli was voted New Zealanders’ second-most favourite vegetable in 2023’s inaugural VegElection, hot on the heels of tomato – which technically is a fruit. But semantics aside, our love affair with broccoli brings many benefits.

Broccoli belongs to the brassica family of vegetables, joining cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoflower and various Asian cabbages. Native to the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor, broccoli was cultivated in Italy and reportedly introduced to England and America in the 1700s. But it became a commercially grown crop in New Zealand only in the 1970s.