Vegetables of all kinds - leafy, roots, beans, flowers from various parts of the plants bring a variety of taste and nutrition to the table. Eat more vegetables is the most common advise you will get from various dieticians when looking for weight management solutions. However it is very important on how you consume vegetables. Eating them as salads is a great option. The typical Indian way of cooking vegetables to the extent that they get really soft tends to reduce the nutrition it brings to the table.
Although salads are really healthy but for many vegetables it is important that they are cooked to some extent so that their nutrients become bio-available to you. For example beta carotenes from red tomatoes are not available to the human body for diegestion till the tomatoes have been at least steamed to some extent.
However with prolonged cooking temperatures, various nutrients in the form of bio-molecules like vitamins, plant sterols, anthocyanins, dietary fibres tend to degrade thus leaving little nutrition. Best way to cook vegetables is by stir frying them for short duration so that some crunch is still left to chew on.
If the cooked vegetables are chewy enough, they tend to bring you the bulk which can help you feel full faster. Fibre in your diet will help good bacteria to thrive in your guts. These good bacteria generate secondary metabolites from digestion of the fibre which are known to have immunity enhancing effects. Therfore next time you cook vegetables experimenting with less cooking time and temperatures can give a different taste to the dish.