Water-soluble vitamins leave food by two separate routes: they dissolve into the cooking water, and they break down under heat. Change the method, the time, the cut, and whether the liquid is kept — and watch each vitamin respond differently. A fat-soluble vitamin rides along as the control.
In the pot
Retained in what you eat
solid = still in the foodpale = in the kept liquid
Tap any vitamin to read why it behaves that way.
Losses in cookingpick a method to begin
Cooking method
Vitamin C, all six methods, at your current settings
What is solid, and what is not.Strong evidence: water-soluble vitamins leach into cooking water, and heat plus time degrade vitamin C, folate and thiamin — this is measured routinely and is why retention factors exist. Preliminary or uncertain: the exact percentages, which swing widely with cultivar, ripeness, storage, pH, and pan; and whether these kitchen differences change any health outcome, which has not been shown. No cooking method prevents or treats disease. The figures here are a teaching model tuned to published retention factors, not a lookup table for a specific meal.