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I am doing a practical investigation on the amount of vitamin C remaining in red capsicum after I have cooked it by different methods. My results show that the order of most vitamin C to least is: raw, steamed, microwaved, roasted, pan-fried and boiled. I was wondering why it is this way. What is the chemistry behind it? What happens to the vitamin C that causes it to decrease as is there one particular factor which determines it?
280708
Igloo writes ...
You will find plenty of FAQ references on our web site as to what happens when vitamin C decomposes, and why an increased temperature accelerates the rate of decomposition, so I shall not go through all this again here.
Obviously the raw capsicum will contain the most vitamin C since the vitamin C has not at this stage been partly destroyed by heat.
Steaming, micro-waving, roasting and pan-frying involve similar conditions in that in all cases heat is being applied to the vegetable and the vitamin C content is reduced accordingly. I expect that the reason why the vitamin C content remains higher in steamed capsicum than in roasted or pan-fried has something to do with the fact that lower temperatures are involved in steaming than in roasting and pan-frying.
Finally, boiling in water would be expected to give the lowest vitamin C values in the capsicum, because, in addition to decomposition, much of the vitamin C is leached into the cooking water, further reducing its concentration in the capsicum.
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updated: 28 July 2008
