Vegetables on the barbecue. To do or not?

The time when barbecuing was synonymous with large pieces of meat and fatty sausages seems to be over. With the increasing popularity of grilling on the barbecue, more and more vegetables are also grilled. Is that healthy?

You can cook many different products on a barbecue. Whether it is a sausage, a whole chicken, a pizza or a loaf. It's possible. So also vegetables. Because the heat of a barbecue is so high that it really does get cooked. The glowing charcoal mass gives off heat. This radiant heat increases the temperature on the outside and then the inside of a product. This makes the food brown and cooked. This is also how it works with vegetables. Due to the high temperature, taste changes also occur in the vegetables. Vegetables contain natural sugars that caramelize when heated and that tastes great: complex and deliciously sweet.

Is it healthy?

Eating vegetables is always healthy. The more vegetables you eat, the healthier you will be. And a barbecue with vegetables is by definition a much healthier meal than a barbecue meal that consists only of meat, sauces and bread. The advantage of grilling vegetables compared to cooking vegetables is that the vegetables retain more vitamins. Cooking in water always leads to vitamin loss because many vitamins from vegetables dissolve in water. That does not happen with grilling. And the black edges that arise? Unlike black edges on meat, you don't necessarily have to cut them away. The charred pieces may not be very tasty, but they are not bad for your health. It is the carbohydrates in vegetables that burn (vegetables contain hardly any protein and almost never fat). Those burned carbohydrates are not harmful. You can compare that burnt edge of vegetables to norit, which is made from charred plants. Very different from the burnt edge of meat, these are burnt proteins and they are harmful to health: they have carcinogenic properties. Conclusion: vegetables are healthy, even when they come from the barbecue.

If you are a vegetable grill starter, start with bell peppers or hearty beef tomatoes. Cut them into pieces or slices, brush them with some oil and place them on the hot metal grid. It immediately starts to smell nice. Where the vegetables come into contact with the grid, brown streaks appear, because the grid gives off extra heat. If your barbecue has a lid, cover the barbecue so that the vegetables cook more evenly. You can also place the vegetables in a (disposable) barbecue dish and heat it like that. The stripes are missing. After about 15 minutes the vegetables are nicely roasted, just turn or toss halfway through. When your vegetables are cooked enough, place them on a platter or immediately on your plate, sprinkle with some salt and pepper and serve. Delicious as it is, but also delicious with a dressing. This way you can prepare a lot of vegetables. Courgettes, vegetable asparagus, aubergines, onion wedges, celeriac slices, cauliflower slices, broccoli slices. Any kind of vegetable is possible. Even vegetables that take a little longer, such as beets, carrots or sweet potatoes. Vary in flavors by mixing the vegetables with spices and herbs before grilling. The Moroccan spice mixture ras el hanout is tasty, for example. Or brush the vegetables with garlic oil and sprinkle with ground dried chillies, Italian herbs or rosemary.