Are Pickles "Good" Food?

[digitS']

@ninnymary talking about pickled daikon radishes on @TheSeedObsesser 's thread made me wonder enough to ask.

Now, I don't want to start any food fights. We all have our food preferences. I'm even wondering lately about "accepted" ideas about food that may just reflect cultural biases. I'm asking about nutritional value.

I can't make very good use of acidic foods and I've always liked things like sauerkraut and dill pickles but never want to eat a lot. Oh, no! Upset stomach! But, do they retain their food value? Is pickling a good way of preserving what our food gardens produce?

Steve

 

[happy acres]

Pickling is a good way to preserve foods, as is canning, drying, freezing,salt or sugar curing, smoking etc. Naturally certain foods are used in certain ways, usually time -tested. For cucumbers, besides pickles, there is also putting them into soups, then freezing, or even dehydration. If the question you mean is related to food value, it would depend upon one's diet. Do pickles retain their food value? Yes and no. While the nutrients are not "lost " during the pickling process, they are changed somewhat. I hope this answers your question, perhaps someone else has something else to add?

 

[so lucky]

Fermented pickles are good for you. You can pickle lots of different kinds of veggies by fermenting. (Think kraut) But then when/if you process the pickles, you supposedly kill off a lot of the good bacteria. I don't suppose regular pickling using vinegar, salt and sugar would be especially good for a person. Maybe somewhere someone has weighed out the pros and cons of conventional pickling: whether the "vegetable" aspect is enough to balance out the sugar/salt/vinegar aspect.

 

[journey11]

I would imagine that the vinegar extracts a lot of the nutritive value from the cucumber itself, as alcohol or oils do when you make extracts. (There's a word for this, I can't recall at the moment.) So regular pickles that are not fermented and also processed in a boiling water bath probably have little nutritional value in themselves. Fermented pickled veggies (you can ferment just about anything) will have increased value because of the beneficial bacteria.

 

[catjac1975]

Vinegar itself is good for you. Don't know about the nutrients in the vegetables.

 

[Dave2000]

Most of the vitamins remain. Vinegar will convert some minerals to (non-sodium) salts that to a small extent will leech out into water. Foods are healthier fresh but pickled beats thrown away because it rotted. The main down-side is if it has a high sodium content from pickling in brine, which is probably more of an issue for people who eat a lot of convenience foods rather than people who eat a lot of what they grow.