Evidence-based nutrition

We read the studies. You get the answers.

The research depth of PubMed. The reading experience of a magazine. The simplicity of pressing play.

The Definitive Guide

What your body actually absorbs from your food

7 flagship studies. 80+ underlying trials. Three decades of food science converge on one principle: the nutrition label is the starting line, not the finish line.

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Myths we killed 4

Cooking vegetables destroys all their nutrients

Fat-free dressing is the healthy choice for salads

Turmeric with black pepper boosts absorption by 2,000%

Cooling and reheating rice cuts calories by 50%

7 studies 4 RCTs 1 meta-analyses Triple-verified Explore cluster →

What the evidence says

How Much Fat Do You Need to Absorb Nutrients From Vegetables? Your body cannot absorb the key color-giving nutrients in vegetables without some fat on the plate. Fat-free salad dressing blocks absorption almost completely. But you do not need… 2:45 · 3 studies

What Foods Help Your Body Absorb More Iron? Your body does not absorb all the iron you eat — it absorbs anywhere from 2% to over 20%, depending on what else is on your plate. Vitamin… 2:45 · 2 studies

Do Anti-Nutrients in Beans and Grains Block Mineral Absorption? Anti-nutrients in beans and grains — mainly a compound called phytic acid — grab onto iron and zinc in your gut before your body can absorb them. In… 2:55 · 3 studies

Does Cooking Vegetables Destroy Their Nutrients? Cooking your vegetables does not destroy their nutrition — it changes it. In lab tests, cooked vegetables had more antioxidant power than raw ones almost every single time.… 3:00 · 2 studies

Are Frozen Vegetables as Nutritious as Fresh? Frozen vegetables are just as nutritious as fresh for almost every nutrient scientists tested across eight common produce items. The one exception is beta-carotene — the orange pigment… 2:37 · 2 studies

Does Cooling and Reheating Rice Reduce Calories? Cooling and reheating rice does create a small amount of extra resistant starch — a type of fiber that passes through your stomach undigested. But the weight-loss claims… 2:45 · 3 studies

Does turmeric with black pepper really boost absorption by 2000%? The 2000% number is real math from one study, but it is misleading. The starting amount of curcumin absorbed without black pepper was so tiny it was barely… 2:53 · 1 studies

The papers we actually read

Four Labs Tried to Replicate Turmeric’s 2000% Claim The 2000% curcumin absorption boost from black pepper comes from dividing by a baseline so close to the equipment's detection… Shoba et al. · 1998 · Planta Medica · n=8

99% of Wheat’s Iron Passes Right Through You A narrative review of 42 human intervention studies found that phytic acid in grains and beans reduces mineral absorption in… Chondrou et al. · 2024 · Nutrients

The Same Iron Can Be 2% or 20% Absorbed — Here’s Why The same iron-rich food can be 2% or 20% absorbed depending entirely on what else is on the plate, according… Hallberg et al. · 2000 · American Journal of Clinical Nutrition · n=310

What the Cold Rice Hack Gets Wrong About Resistant Starch A purified resistant starch supplement produced 2.81 kg of weight loss in 8 weeks — but the effect required specific… al. et al. · 2024 · Nature Metabolism · n=37

Why Fat-Free Dressing Cancels Your Salad’s Nutrition Fat-free dressing produced negligible carotenoid absorption from salad vegetables. Unsaturated fats like olive oil delivered more than three times the… Yao et al. · 2022 · Nutrition Reviews · n=39

Your Frozen Peas Have Double the Vitamin E of Fresh A UC Davis study comparing eight produce items across eleven nutrients found that frozen matched or exceeded fresh in the… Bouzari et al. · 2015 · Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Does Cooking Vegetables Destroy Nutrients? 27 Tests Later In a controlled comparison of boiled, steamed, and fried vegetables against raw, cooking increased antioxidant capacity in 26 of 27… Miglio et al. · 2008 · Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Hall 2019 UPF Study: 500 Hidden Calories Nobody Tasted Twenty adults locked in an NIH hospital ward ate 508 extra calories per day on ultra-processed food — despite rating… Hall et al. · 2019 · Cell Metabolism · n=20

Supplements

Tempeh and tofu start as the same thing. Same soybeans. Same iron content, same zinc, same calcium sitting inside the same raw legume.

How Tempeh Unlocks Iron That Tofu Keeps Trapped

2 min read 388 words

Nutrition

The optimization and the vulnerability live in the same habit.

The Invisible Cost of Fat-Free Dressing

2 min read 480 words

Nutrition

You have ranked these three your entire life. Fresh produce goes in the basket first, bright and fragile. Frozen is the backup, and canned lands last in every nutritional ranking you have ever made, chosen when budget or shelf life wins out over what you believe is the better option.

Canned Vegetables Keep What Fresh Ones Quietly Lose

2 min read 539 words

BUILT TO PROVE OURSELVES WRONG

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About FitChef

No opinions. Just the science.

We go through hundreds of studies so you don't have to. Then we turn them into stories anyone can understand — and listen to on the go.

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The research

7 peer-reviewed studies

4 RCTs

7 claims verified

Triple-verified · DOI-linked · Kill-switched

In numbers

18stories

129claims

113studies reviewed

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