The New Complete Book of Food
Storing This Food
Keep okra in the refrigerator.Preparing This Food
Wash the okra under cold running water, then use it whole or sliced thickly.What Happens When You Cook This Food
When okra is heated in water, its starch granules absorb water molecules and swell. Eventually,
they rupture, releasing amylose and amylopectin molecules as well as gums and pectic sub-
stances, all of which attract and immobilize water molecules, thickening the soup or stew.How Other Kinds of Processing Affect This Food
Canning and freezing. Canned and frozen okra have less vitamin C per serving than fresh
okra.Medical Uses and/or Benefits
Lower risk of some birth defects. As many as two of every 1,000 babies born in the United
States each year may have cleft palate or a neural tube (spinal cord) defect due to their moth-
ers’ not having gotten adequate amounts of folate during pregnancy. The current RDA for
folate is 180 mcg for a woman and 200 mcg for a man, but the FDA now recommends 400 mcg
for a woman who is or may become pregnant. Taking folate supplements before becoming
pregnant and continuing through the first two months of pregnancy reduces the risk of cleft
palate; taking folate through the entire pregnancy reduces the risk of neural tube defects.
Possible lower risk of heart attack. In the spring of 1998, an analysis of data from the records
for more than 80,000 women enrolled in the long-running Nurses’ Health Study at Harvard
School of Public Health/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, demonstrated that a diet
providing more than 400 mcg folate and 3 mg vitamin B 6 daily, either from food or supple-
ments, might reduce a woman’s risk of heart attack by almost 50 percent. Although men
were not included in the study, the results were assumed to apply to them as well.
However, data from a meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association in December 2006 called this theory into question. Researchers at Tulane Univer-
sity examined the results of 12 controlled studies in which 16,958 patients with preexisting
cardiovascular disease were given either folic acid supplements or placebos (“look-alike” pills
with no folic acid) for at least six months. The scientists, who found no reduction in the risk
of further heart disease or overall death rates among those taking folic acid, concluded that