Healthy Oil for Cooking

Cooking at home comes with a plethora of benefits. It keeps you from consuming unnecessary calories and unhealthy ingredients. Cooking at home is also a good antidote against lifestyle-related medical conditions linked to poor diet quality and consequent weight gain.

How do you cook food that is healthful as well as delicious? Here are essential tips for healthy oil for cooking that will make your food preparations taste incredible and would also be healthy.

1. Know healthy food options/ingredients

Control over the ingredients used and knowing what you’re putting in the food is foremost for healthy cooking. It all begins when you are shopping; be sure to buy low-fat foods as much as possible. Avoid high-fat salad dressings, gravies, fast food, chips, crisps, processed meats, pastries and pies. When buying meat products, choose lean meat and skinless chicken breast. Put more fresh vegetables, legumes and whole grain cereals in your shopping cart! [1]

2. Choose the right healthy oil for cooking 

With no dearth of cooking oil options, it becomes a daunting task to choose the best cooking oil for your health. To make things easy, look for the ones with lower ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 fats. All plant-based oils such as olive oil contain zero animal-based saturated fat and keep you at a good distance from cardiovascular diseases, cancer and auto-immune diseases. [2]

3. Learn to retain nutrients

Nutrients, particularly water-soluble vitamins, can easily get destroyed during the cooking process. Since many nutrients are found close to the skin of the vegetables, scrub the vegetables instead of peeling them to minimise nutrient loss. Include more stir-fry recipes in your diet to retain nutrients; it also helps retain the crunchiness of the vegetable. The best cooking methods that help retain nutrients are steaming, baking, grilling, braising, boiling and microwaving the food. [3]

4. Cut back on salt/sodium

Salt is a flavour enhancer, but also contributes to a range of health problems when not checked. Put less quantity of salt in the food while cooking; if you need more, you can always add a pinch on the table. Also, always taste your food and don’t just sprinkle salt on it. Avoid ready-to-eat foods, canned foods, soup mixes, chips, processed sauce and condiments as these are all salt-laden. [4]

5. Organise things

When you cook, do it like a cook! Get all the ingredients ready and organised. When everything is in place, it becomes easier for you to follow the recipe properly. Chances of things going wrong are minimal.

Making meals at home saves your money and keeps calories, fat, and sodium in check. Also, you can exercise greater control on the nutrition levels of the food being cooked at home. It’s easy on the pocket and healthy — two wonderful reasons for you to cook yourself.

It is only the pattern of your choices that counts!

References

• http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/HealthyEating/Nutrition/The-American-Heart-Associations-Diet-and-Lifestyle-Recommendations_UCM_305855_Article.jsp#.V5WXsrh96M8
• http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/HealthyEating/SimpleCookingwithHeart/Healthy-Cooking-Oils_UCM_445179_Article.jsp#.V5WYCLh96M8
• http://www.eatright.org/resource/homefoodsafety/safety-tips/food-poisoning/getting-the-most-flavor-and-nutrients
• http://www.cdc.gov/salt/reduce_sodium_tips.htm