Making Sense of Healthy Cooking Ingredients

When you talk about healthy eating and a healthy diet, images of fresh salads and low calorie foods may fill your mind. But a healthy diet is not made up of that alone. A healthy meal includes foods that are controlled in terms of calories, fats, and other detrimental food additives. If you are planning to stock your kitchen with healthy cooking ingredients to promote a healthier lifestyle, here is a quick guide how and why:

Low-fat or No-fat

Keep on hand a lot of ingredients that are low in fat or contain no fat at all. This applies to seasonings, flavorings, and additives. If you want to use oil for cooking, choose olive or canola oil since they are mono-saturated, meaning they are healthier than vegetable oils. Avoid buying/using processed food as cooking ingredients, since there are hidden fats in these kinds of foods. Instead, opt for more natural fats like those in fish, seeds, soy, olives, and avocado.

Also, when you buy AND store meat, take out the fat. (Like, in all beef cuts, for example.) Additionally, try using non-stick cookware, as it is one way of cooking healthier because you won't need cooking oil, a source of cholesterol. Further, you can switch to steaming, boiling, microwaving, baking, and braising food to maintain more of the valuable nutrients foods.

Healthy Cooking Made Easy!

Shop Healthy

Before you actually get to try your kitchen goddess skills with those healthy cooking ingredients, you must shop for them first. As such, the lifestyle change starts with shopping healthy. Stock your pantry and refrigerator with skinless meat, lean cuts, leafy greens, organic vegetables, and low-fat versions of dressings and gravy. Also be sure to add fish to your shopping cart, as it contains high amounts of protein and Omega 3, which is healthy for your heart.

Shop Fresh

Also, remember that when you shop for cooking raw materials, they have to be and look fresh. There's a cooking adage that says, "If it looks good, it probably is." When you're at the market choosing cooking ingredients, the greens have to be a healthy green color, the meat should be lean and faultless, and the spices should be well within their healthy date/s of consumption.

Healthy living starts in the kitchen because that's where what you put inside will be processed. Try searching the Internet for healthy cooking recipes to spend your great cooking raw materials on.