Effect of Old‐fashioned and Modern Methods of Cooking on Retention of Nutrients in Vegetables. Ii. Snap Beans

Abstract

I n spite of education to the contrary, snap beans are still prepared in many sections by the "old-fashioned method" in which the beans are cooked several hours in a water, salt, and fat-meat mixture. It was thought worth while to determine the effect of this method on retention of nutrients as compared with recommended procedures.Very little study has been made of old-fashioned methods as discussed in an earlier paper by Eheart and Sholes (1948). A few studies of beans cooked by present-day methods have been made. Beans cooked in the waterless cooker were compared by Brinkman, Halliday, Hinman, and Hamner (1942) with those cooked in an open kettle. The beans cooked in the open kettle were found higher in calcium than those cooked in the waterless cooker and about the same in phosphorus and ascorbic acid. The retention of ascorbic acid was 51 per cent in the open kettle and 49 per cent in the waterless cooker. Similar results were found by Ireson and Eheart (1944) when the tightly covered and open-kettle methods were compared for cooking beans. It was found that there was no significant difference between the two methods for retention of ascorbic acid since the open-kettle method retained 57.5 per cent and the tightly covered kettle, 58.8 per cent. Noble and Waddell (1946) also found no significant difference in the ascorbic &id content of green beans cooked in the open kettle and in the tightly covered kettle since the percentage retention of ascorbic acid was 62 to 74 for different varieties cooked by the open kettle and 66 to 68 for those varieties cooked in the tightly covered kettle. Mack, Tapley, and King (1939) reported a retention of 62 and 66 per cent of the ascorbic acid content of two varieties of beans when cooked in the open kettle. The loss of ascorbic acid was due primarily to solution. Thus, the studies in which the open-kettle and waterless-cooker methods have been compared do not seem to show much difference in retention of ascorbic acid in beans.Several studies have been made in which beans were cooked in water in ratios of from 1 : 1 to 4 : 1 but these methods do not simulate the openkettle or waterless-cooker methods-Farrell and Fellers ( 1942), Phillips and Fenton (1945) and Van Duyne, Chase, Fanska, and Simpson (1946). Retentions of ascorbic acid in these studies were from 74 to 78 per cent. In one study by Van D u p e et al. (1946) the retention of ascorbic acid was lowered from 78 to 66 per cent when the ratio of beans to water was