Cooking For Your Health The Right Way

Many of us are looking for healthier ways to cook our food for various reasons. Some people want to combat heart diseases or other serious illnesses, while others are trying to drop a few pounds put on over the years. Whatever your reasons are, there are several simple ways to make the way you cook your food more beneficial to your overall health.

Healthier Ways To Cook Your Food

Bake It

Some of your favorite dishes and foods can be turned healthier by simply choosing to bake them in the oven, rather than pan fry or deep fry them. Two main culprits are chicken and French fries. Fried chicken is delicious and juicy and most of the time when you bite into it, hot grease drips from your wrist down to your elbow. Eek!

Ditch the unhealthy oils and instead try breading your chicken, placing it on tinfoil (so as to avoid a mess) and bake it. The chicken will turn out just as tasty and juicy as it would have if it was fried. The only difference is that your heart will be thanking you later for avoiding a ton of unhealthy fat.

Looking for a healthy alternative to bread crumbs? Try chopping up almost or any other nut you like and breading your chicken with this instead. It'll also add an extra dose of protein to your already healthy meal.

Use Oils

Instead of adding extra to your rice and pasta, use healthy oils instead. Olive oil, flaxseed oil and coconut oil are a few options you might consider. These oils can be poured in a pan and heated up the same way as butter if you're cooking veggies.

Lean Out Your Meats

Fat can be cooked off of most meat. Have you ever barbecued burgers and watched fat drip off the ground beef, causing the fire to stir up? Chances are, your grilled beef patties are quite healthy. Beyond that, when you cook ground beef on the stove you can first brown the meat halfway and then add a cup or two of water to boil out the fat.

When you boil out the fat, it will rise to the top of the pan and you will be able to skim it off with a spoon. You may not be used to the taste of your meat this way, but the benefits of leaning out your meats are great for your heart.

You can then bulk up your burgers by adding various vegetables like onions, bell peppers and zucchini to the mix. Garlic, chiles and jalapenos are also good additives for a bit more flavor if your extra-lean meat just really isn't doing it for your taste buds.

Healthy Food Substitutions

You may consider substituting out some of the unhealthy and fattening ingredients and opting for more light and healthy options instead. Easy ways to substitute old habits for new ones are by switching to whole grain bread and brown rice instead of white.

You can also make a pact with yourself to eat at least one fruit or vegetable as a snack instead of something that is packaged. You may also consider taking a vitamin supplement to help with overall immune health.

Eating healthier foods can definitely make for a healthier lifestyle, but the way you cook those foods also matters. By taking note of the way you prepare your food and how its served, you can take your health to the next level.

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Written By:

Virginia Cunningham is a writer for Northwest, mother and yoga enthusiast from Southern California. Doing simple things are ways that she takes care of her body, like drinking enough water and aiming for eight hours of sleep every night.

Reviewed By:

Founder Ray Spotts has a passion for all things natural and has made a life study of nature as it relates to health and well-being. Ray became a forerunner bringing products to market that are extraordinarily effective and free from potentially harmful chemicals and additives. For this reason Ray formed Trusted Health Products, a company you can trust for clean, effective, and healthy products. Ray is an organic gardener, likes fishing, hiking, and teaching and mentoring people to start new businesses. You can get his book for free, “How To Succeed In Business Based On God’s Word,” at www.rayspotts.com.