Baking Vs Boiling- Cooking

Is there a difference between baking and boiling potatoes? Also, how are you supposed to cook apples and pears, and for how long?

 

RP recommends at least 40 minutes of boiling and it makes starch more digestible.
You can cook for an hour too, depending on how you react.
Boiling also help with lowering Solanine content of potato, as it is water soluble.
This is not going to happen in baking. Solanine is most concentrated just below the skin,
so a thick peeling is quite helpful. This study shows baked potato has more
resistant starch than boiled one. RP does not recommend resistant starch.
Always eat starch with saturated fat to minimize bacteria feeding.
Cooked potato juice has all the nutrient and protein without problematic starch.
He only mentioned cooked apple, i have tried cooking small pieces of apple
in water for about 10 minutes. If you find 10 min cooking cause digestive problem
you can increase cooking time.

 

Hi Mittir,

You mention you can boil a potato for an hour - do you know if there's an upper limit? I typically boil for an hour but sometimes much longer depending on what I'm doing.

 

I think the upper limit is more of an issue of taste than health.

 

RP usually mentions at least 40 minutes. I have noticed 40 min often is not enough,
depends on size of potato and age. Young potato cooks very quickly.
I usually boil for an hour and it causes less problem.
RP prefers high temperature quick cooking over slow cooking to avoid
oxidization of cholesterol and break down of PUFA . He also mentioned oxidization of amino
acids in dry milk. Potato is free of cholesterol and very little PUFA.
I would not worry about 1 hour cooking. RP also mentioned not to cook more than
3-4 hours for bone broth. That can give an idea about an upper limit.

 

If you cut the potato into thin slices, it will take much, much less than 40mins. That's assuming the starch is broken down when the potato becomes soft.

 

Thanks for the advice / tips.

 

If you boil thinly sliced potato, a lot of potassium and magnesium
will be leached into boiled water and you will loose other
water soluble vitamins too. If you want to retain vitamins and minerals
boiling whole potato with skin on is a better idea.

 

Then how is boiling any better than baking? It just feels like if you leave the skin on then you are just using heat to cook it. How would boiling help reduce the starch then?

 

Oh wow I had no idea. No more slicing then.

 

I have boiled/steamed potatoes many times. I have to say that baking them makes them much more tasty and I feel like they digest better. I feel great after them.
Boiling/steaming leaves them tasting quite bad. Not appetizing at all. And I just don't feel as nourished after eating them.

 

You never eat potatoes with the skin due to the high amount of solanine.

I boil them a bit which makes it easier to peel them, discard the water, slice them up and make a veggie stew with various condiments. You obviously don't have to discard the water the second time.

Don't boil potatoes for an hour, they'll turn to mush.

 

and adding salt to the boiled water can help to quick a little faster .
i usually cut it into small pieces and then boil it for 25 minutes and it comes very well cooked,
but i usually drink the boiled water after cooking potatoes because some of the minerals and vitamins are lost there , and i didn't notice any side effects from doing that.