5 ways to make cooking healthier

Enjoy great-tasting and healthy food with these 5 ways to make cooking healthier. As there is absolutely no reason why we can’t have it all. Being healthy and feeling good doesn’t come with a ‘food must bore you’ policy. Sometimes ‘no pain, no gain’ is just bull. You’re always going to have to eat (it helps you stay alive, obvs) and you’re going to have to do it several times a day, so don’t make it a miserable experience or you’ll just end up miserable every day, several times a day.

Enjoy your food, and enjoy knowing it’s doing you good. To achieve this, it’s important to pay some attention to the details; the little things. So it’s time to don the apron and get your DIY on – that way, you can keep an eye on those little things and stay healthy while still enjoying what you eat.

Cooking style

The first, and probably most obvious, change should be how you’re cooking your food. You probably eat more fried food than you think (it’s not all just from KFC!) and this can be dangerous because the fat in some oils can become toxic when heated over a certain temperature. And every time that oil is re-used, it becomes more toxic. When you eat out, it’s impossible to tell how many times the oil has been reused to cook your food.

When cooking at home, try to avoid frying in oil (there’s steaming, boiling, air frying – get creative!) and if you are going to fry food, try using oils with a higher smoke point (like coconut oil).

Side dishes 

How often do you consider your side dishes? Having veg on the side of your main meal might seem all well and good but how has it been cooked? Is it fried in butter? What’s on your salad? A creamy dressing perhaps? Making little changes to your side dishes (such as steaming instead of frying) and picking your dressings carefully (or going without) can make a huge difference to your calorie, fat and salt intake without making you feel deprived!

Salt

It can be difficult to gauge how much salt is in some food, and how much is too much – especially when you start relying on it for ‘flavour’. My top tip for cutting back without losing enjoyment is to eat plainer foods and begin to notice the other flavours that are in them. Your taste buds will become more sensitive again, you won’t need to add salt to dishes, and you’ll be able to tell when a food has too much salt and should be avoided.

Try experimenting with herbs and spices to bring new flavours to your dishes without relying on salt and pepper.

Sugar

Sugar is another thing we come to rely on flavour wise; but it’s more dangerous than salt as our bodies also begin to rely on it. The cravings you get? Yep, you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll be the sugar addiction you didn’t know you had! A sugar hit causes insulin to be pumped into your system to deal with the excess, which can’t be stored as glycogen in our muscles. Insulin stores the sugar as fat. As well as causing us to gain fat, sugar causes our bodies to retain water – making us feel bloated and uncomfortable.

Having said this, a sweet treat is always enjoyable, so why cut back on the enjoyment when there are alternatives you could try? There are loads of alternatives to sugar. Try plant-based stevia in your tea or coffee, experiment with fruit on your cereal or in your baking (try beetroot!) and, although still high in glucose, pure honey is brilliant as a sugar alternative as it has countless other health benefits.

Fat

Lastly, having excess fat in our diet is exceptionally easy, and also exceptionally dangerous. With processed meats, confectionery and fried food being considered the norm more and more these days, it’s important to start recognising what will have excess fat in it, and how to make an alternative which will be just as yummy but much healthier.

Picking good cuts of lean meat and trimming off any visible fat (like on bacon) is a good start. Google is at your fingertips 24/7, so why not use it to find new, healthy recipes for dishes like burgers, sausages, pies, curries and kebabs? It sounds like a lot of effort but it’s surprisingly not. Cook enough to put some in the freezer and you’ve essentially made it is convenient as buying a frozen ready meal later in the week.

Cheeses and sauces are also usually high in fat and we often add to our meals without thinking too much about them. If we pay attention to these details and either find alternatives (of which there are loads and loads) or go without, you’ll find your fat consumption goes down and your health goes up. Win-win!