Choose Healthy Cooking Ingredients To Improve Your Recipes . . . And Your Health!

We can’t avoid it! Cooking is a part of our daily lives; and the food we put into our bodies is very important. The ingredients we choose to prepare out meals with not only determines if the meal will be delicious but nutritious as well. So how do you know what ingredients are healthy and what you can substitute for unhealthy ones? Here are ten tips to healthy cooking ingredients:

1. Reduce the amount of salt in your recipes. You won’t notice the difference if you cut back to about half of the salt you normally use in your recipes. You can replace salt all together with a variety of spice blends, dried citrus peels, flavored vinegars or herbs. Onion or garlic powders work well in soups, stews and sauces.

2. Add a variety of vegetables to your recipes. Colorful vegetables not only make your meals look more appetizing but healthier too. Try different varieties of salad mixes and frozen vegetable blends. You can add chopped yellow, red or green peppers to improve the flavors your meals. Replace heavy sauces and gravies with fruit chutneys and vegetable salsas as accompaniments to your meat and poultry dishes.

3. Reduce the fat in your home baked goodies. Substitute up to half of the butter, margarine or shortening in your recipes with fruit purees, yogurt, mashed bananas or applesauce. These will boost the nutrition level in your goodies and keep your waste line slim. Prune puree works well in darker baked goods like brownies and chocolate cakes. Use the lighter colored purees in cookies and yellow cake mixes.

4. Substitute high fat ingredients with their low fat counterparts. Heavy cream, whole milk and full fat cheese can be replaced with evaporated milk or soy milk, yogurt, and low fat cheese. Yogurt and low fat sour cream are taste alternatives for fatty creamer. Low fat dressings and healthy oils like canola and olive oil are also healthy alternatives for your recipes.

5. Increase the fiber in your recipes. Whole grain flours and other non-wheat flours will boost the fiber content and nutrition level of your baked goods. Some other healthy additions to your bread and muffin recipes include flax seed, oatmeal, wheat germ and bran. Soy and spelt flour are also good for breads and biscuits.

6. Replace whipped creams and frosting with delicious fruit sauces and purees. Healthy alternatives to cookies and cakes include fruit cobblers and stewed and fresh fruit desserts. Frozen yogurt, fruit sorbet and sherbet are tasty substitutes for ice cream.

7. Ban chemicals and overly refined ingredients from your recipes. Unhealthy ingredients like refined margarines and shortenings, monosodium glutamate (MSG), hydrogenated animal oils, aspartame, white processed sugar and artificial sweeteners should be avoided as much as possible. These ingredients can cause medical problems like headaches, memory loss, seizure disorders and hyperactivity among children.

Healthy cooking ingredients are vital for delicious tasting food but the nutritional aspects shouldn’t be ignored. Substituting unhealthy ingredients with healthy alternatives will go a long way toward improving your diet and keep your body and mind healthy. Little changes you make today will have a big impact on your life in the future.

Here’s to eating well.

Cheers!

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