Fresh fruits and vegetables are among the most nutritious foods you can choose. They're low in calories yet rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. That's why produce, along with whole grains, forms the basis of a healthful diet. What's more, the way you store, prepare, and cook these foods can magnify (or preserve) their already healthful properties.

Clinical trials have shown that eating about two cloves of garlic per day may help prevent platelets in blood from clumping, which may help keep your arteries unobstructed and reduce your risk of heart attack. Lab studies have linked those benefits to thiosulfinates, compounds that also give garlic and onions their pungent smell.

To test how different preparation and cooking methods affected thiosulfinates, plant geneticist Philipp Simon, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a group of researchers at Cuyo University in Argentina gathered four pounds of garlic and crushed half with a garlic press. They let all the garlic sit at room temperature for 10 minutes and then cooked batches of each sample in a 400-degree oven, in a microwave, or in boiling water for up to 20 minutes. Next, they tested whether each batch of garlic could alter how well blood platelets clumped. Garlic cooked whole had no anti-clumping ability, but crushed, lightly cooked garlic had a significant effect in reducing platelet clumping.

The reason: Thiosulfinates don't form until the clove is crushed or cut. "At the moment of cutting, thiosulfinates are formed," Simon explains. "The more cells you break, the more of the compound is released, so chop garlic as best you can into little pieces." Let chopped garlic sit for 10 minutes to allow time for thiosulfinates to develop, then cook briefly, or not at all. When preparing a meal, chop the amount you need and set it aside while you complete other tasks, such as preheating the oven

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