Diet Cooking

Whether you are trying to revamp your eating habits to lose weight, change your diet or prevent illness - or all of the above - learning to cook healthy food is the greatest gift you can give yourself and your family.

In the long run, if you live a well-rounded life, exercise appropriately, and maintain a healthy diet, you should be able to avoid many of the diseases and conditions that plague our society today.

Simple Cooking Techniques

There are many cooking and health tips on countless subjects that spell out quite logically and easily some ways to improve diet and cook in a healthier fashion.

Anyone can change to a healthier way of cooking overnight and it doesn't really require a great amount of skill or research - just start small and see what works best for you. In the long run, any changes you make will have a positive reward.

TIPS FOR HEALTHY PREPARATION OF FOOD

• Steam vegetables whenever possible - you retain more of the food's nutrients
• Incorporate nuts and whole grains into your recipes
• Substitute olive oil or canola oil over other oils and fats
• Keep salt to a minimum in recipes - usually the full amount is way more than necessary
• Substitute honey or other sugar choices instead of sugar
• Use unbleached flour at the minimum and learn to use it in everything
• Add other enriched flours such as oat or wheat to recipes
• Always trim the fat from meats
• Whenever you can, remove the skin from chicken or turkey
• Use junk food sparingly - there is next to no nutritional value in it
• Fresh over canned, frozen over canned whenever possible
• Avoid processed foods - beware of additives, sugar, white flour
• Organic versus non-organic - personal choice and if you can afford it go organic
• Use more fruits and vegetables - keep as close to their natural state as possible
• Use more herbs and spices (fresh and dried) rather than salt
• Use vegetable broth for soups but check sodium content
• Make beef, chicken, fish, or vegetable broth from scratch - freeze extra