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Vegetables are essential to our diet. The latest recommendation from nutritionists is a minimum of five cups of vegetables per day. The truth is we can get the majority of our daily vitamin and mineral requirements from vegetables.

We need to ensure that how we prepare them does not wash away vitamin contents and benefits of consumption.

Cooking vegetables can be a bit tricky. Over cooking can make vegetables bland and sodden. My belief is that vegetables should never be boiled. Boling not only robs us of vitamin content, it is the main culprit in turning vegetables to a lifeless, tasteless form.

If we cannot boil, what do we do?

Steaming vegetables is always a good choice. This will leave vegetables full of life and colour. They will be crisp and colorful. It will also not deplete the vegetables of their vitamin content.

It is a fast way of cooking also. By rule of thumb, vegetables will only need a few minutes in the steam. In some cases you may be able to cook your vegetables on the table and immediately serve them up.

For those who do not have commercial vegetable steamers, an easy steamer can be fashioned out a of pot, a metal colander, and a pot lid.

Place a small amount of water in the bottom of a given pot. Place the metal colander into the pot. Start to boil the water. You will begin the see the steam rise. Place your vegetables into the metal colander and place the pot lid over the metal colander and pot. This collection of kitchen items will allow you to steam vegetables as good as any fancy store bought steamer.

Another good option is to cook your vegetables in a wok. The secret to the wok is that it cooks quickly at a very high temperature. Vegetables retain their flavors, textures, and colors with very small amount of nutrient loss.

My favorite wok recipe for vegetables is to cook broccoli, carrots, bok choy, and snow peas in a very light chilli sauce. The vegetables remain crisp and the garlic adds just the right amount of flavour. This combination can be served with any cut of meat including chicken, beef, pork, lamb or fish.

I hope you will see that secret to cooking vegetables is not to over cook. Vegetables need to remain crisp and full of color. As you learn different tricks to bringing your vegetables to life, these will become the most requested dishes on your dinner table.

Looking for a food safety supervisor course? A food safety course is available through Southbank Institute of Technology. Search for food safety online on the SBIT web site.