Everyday Healthy Cooking Tips
Balanced Nutrition without Depriving Yourself of Pleasures
Dec 17, 2008
The key to healthy cooking is to eliminate foods that are bad for your body, use foods that are good for your body, while making it all taste great. People eat chocolate cheesecake because it tastes heavenly in your mouth. But that same cheesecake can look terrible on your hips and cause damage to your heart. The good news is you might be able to have that chocolate cheesecake, if you learn how to prepare it in a healthy manner.
The characteristics of food that measure its health value are:
- Calories
- Fat (saturated and unsaturated)
- Sugar
Too many calories and the wrong fats will be stored in your body as excess fat, which can produce plaque, which can lead to a heart attack. Sugar is linked to obesity and decreasing your body's ability to fight diseases. But it tastes so good, which is why so many people have health problems that are related to diet.
Substitute for Healthy Ingredients
The easiest way to begin cooking in a more healthful way is substitution. Take your favorite recipes and substitute ingredients that are better for your body. The most common substitutions will come in the form of:
- Low-fat or no-fat ingredients (such as cheeses)
- Egg substitutes (mostly egg whites and eliminating the yolks)
- Sugar substitutes
- Light cooking oils
These categories occur in most recipes. By substituting lower fat variations, you will have a recipe low in saturated fats. Substituting sugar will cause you to eat fewer calories and may have less fat as well.
Case and point: Chocolate cheesecake, for example, has a lot of fat calories, 300-700 calories per serving, with more than half the calories coming from fat. The recipe for chocolate cheesecake typically includes cream cheese, heavy cream, eggs, and sugar. The substitutions can include low-fat cream cheese, yogurt (in place of heavy cream), egg whites, low-fat or soy milk, a sugar substitute, and a chocolate substitute such as carob.
Sometimes substitutions can alter the way a recipe tastes. If you have a very sensitive palette and you can taste the butter in a recipe, then add a small amount for taste. The most common substitutions that do not drastically alter the taste of a recipe are:
- Cream cheese
- Low-fat or no-fat sour cream
- Soy milk or skim milk in sauces or baking
- Egg substitutes
Things that Must be Eliminated for a Healthy Diet
The next step to healthy cooking is what to eliminate from your diet. Trans fat and high fructose corn syrup must be eliminated for a healthy diet. Trans fat, which is listed on foods as partially hydrogenated oil, increases the level of bad cholesterol in your blood, which can lead to heart attack.
High fructose corn syrup is a preservative and sweetener found in almost every pre-packaged food we consume. It is processed by the liver and converted directly into fat without the release of energy. When energy is not released from the food we digest, the body is tricked into thinking that you have not eaten so you remain hungry. It is this hidden sugar that can lead to obesity.
Change Cooking Methods
How you cook your food also determines the health value. If you take a vegetable like broccoli (which is filled with antioxidants) add cheese, dip it in batter, and deep fry it, you have now turned it into a food high in calories and saturated fat. Alternatively, you could have kept the broccoli cold and dipped it into a low-fat vegetable dip for much more healthy results.
Baking, steaming, and grilling are the best ways to cook your food in a healthy manner. Baking, steaming, and grilling do not add fats and calories as part of the cooking process. These methods also maintain the essential nutrients found in food.
Another great method for healthy cooking is stir frying in a small amount of light oil. Once again, the nutritional value of food is maintained using this method of cooking.
It definitely takes work and dedication to cook in a healthy manner. One must weigh the benefits to see what a difference healthy cooking can make in obtaining balanced nutrition. It helps the matter when everyone around you is on board with your plan to eat better, so get some support, and start today.
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