Potatoes and other pared vegetables should be cooked immediately. Soaking potatoes in water wastes much valuable food material. Meat should be roasted, broiled, or steamed. All meat should be cooked at a low temperature until it reaches the desired stage of doneness. Canned, dried, cold storage, and frozen foods may be used since they keep most of the important food values.
Frozen foods seem to show the least loss of vitamins and minerals.
Dried fruits retain a good percentage of iron, minerals, and vitamins. If you have food in your house and you are trying to make a decision to eat it or to throw it out, wondering if it is safe and how you can be sure, then it might be best to throw it out. A food that is not safe for eating may have illness-causing organisms. When foods are kept too long or stored improperly, they spoil. Some kinds of spoilage makes foods harmful to health, some do not, and it is not always possible to distinguish between the two kinds.