— Laurie Wallace

So that can be debatable a little bit. Um, you know, because it depends, you're not exposing the entire vegetable or grain or whatever to, um, air right away. You know, some of those are still trapped in the inside of the vegetable, even if it's cut on the inside of those things. Now, um, there is a little bit more debate on if you lose antioxidants when you cook something. Um, and that, you know, is kind of plus and minuses as well too. I think that as long as you're eating that whole food plant-based lifestyle, um, you don't really have to worry about getting, uh, the antioxidants as much out of them because it, you're getting them, you know, I often think of like, it's one of the reasons actually, uh, sprouts, like, we'll eat sprouts a lot, um, and just like, um, you know, of all kinds of different greens. 'cause I know that you're getting a lot of antioxidants out of those as well. But as long as you're adding things like that to your food pretty regularly, you're gonna be able to get the antioxidants that you need out of those foods as well. Now where you do lose them is the more processed the ingredient gets, right? So, um, a lot of times people add antioxidants and things to processed foods to be able to keep the, the flavor or texture to them, but if you're eating Whole Foods, um, you're getting a lot of antioxidants, um, right from the food right away. So, you know, eating them as quickly as possible, I mean, in that, you know, kind of five day window that you would keep food for anyways, I think is okay. Um, but if you're eating it fresh and you're making it, you know, for that meal that night, I think you'll be just fine for that.