What Is Healthy Cooking?
What is healthy cooking? There is some confusion as to what healthy eating really means. You might have an allergic reaction to food that is not healthy for you to eat but is healthy for someone else. Sometimes if you eat a more natural organic form of a food, you may not have an allergic reaction. Some people have sensitivities to processed food with preservatives and additives.
Before you create a healthy menu for you and your family, you will need to determine what the healthiest choices are for each person. Healthy cooking may mean different things to each of us depending on our sensitivities or health challenges.
When it comes to healthy cooking, there are so many wonderful foods to choose from and so many different ways to prepare food. It’s a lifelong adventure that is so much fun! The Healthy Cooking Club will teach you how to plan healthy meals and give you delicious healthy recipes.
Healthy cooking means preparing meals that give us the most nutrition possible with the least exposure to chemicals and toxins. Use the freshest possible ingredients that have the least amount of chemicals and preservatives. When available, use organic ingredients. You can purchase these from your local grocery store, health food store or farmers market. Also, you will find that healthy cooking with fresh ingredients without chemicals makes your meals taste better.
If you are creative with your healthy cooking, you can create meals that your friends and family rave about. Our friends have told us that they haven’t tasted food so good. Some of my guests who say they don’t like vegetables can’t get enough of my vegetable dishes. Not only are the ingredients important, but food combinations are really important in healthy cooking.
It’s important to combine the right foods for healthy cooking. Some food combinations can cause digestive upset and interfere with proper absorption of nutrients. Not only that but certain foods just don’t taste good together or the wrong food combination can ruin the consistency of the dish. You need to consider the chemical reaction of each food when combining foods in your healthy cooking.
The quality of the spices you use for your healthy cooking recipes is important. The flavors of a dish should blend well together with subtlety. You don’t want one flavor over powering the dish so you can’t taste the food. You should be able to taste the meat or seafood and the vegetables, herbs, and spices that comprise your skillfully cooked meal. Not all spices are created equal. After many years of experience as a professional chef, I have tried many varieties of spices and have found that dried organic spices, fresh herbs and Himalayan Salt bring my healthy cooking recipes to life!
Healthy cooking is safe handling of food to avoid food infection or food poisoning. Many foods spoil if they don’t get proper refrigeration. Leftovers need to be placed in an airtight container and stored in the refrigerator or freezer as soon after the meal as possible. Poultry and fish are particularly prone to spoiling quickly if left unrefrigerated.
I’ve been to some Thanksgiving dinners where the cooked turkey has been left out at room temperature for hours. Ptomaine food poisoning from spoiled food that has been left unrefrigerated is not something I ever want to experience again.
My husband and I got ptomaine poisoning from chicken we had eaten while traveling. We felt like we were going to die! Leftovers should be eaten the next day and not stored for days in your refrigerator. It’s best to eat food that is as fresh as possible to get the most nutritional value from the food and also to avoid food infection. You will need to plan ahead your healthy cooking menu for the week so that you use the foods that spoil the fastest earlier in the week.
Healthy cooking pots and pans are important to your health too. Some cooking pots and pans emit chemicals that are absorbed into the foods you cook which are not healthy for you and your family. Aluminum pots and pans should be avoided because the aluminum goes into your food when you cook with them. Studies have shown that aluminum is toxic and can be harmful to your health ranging from brain degeneration to skeletal deformities. It’s particularly poisonous to the nervous system. (http://www.drpepi.com/aluminum-poisoning.php) So throw out all of your aluminum pots, pans and bake ware to avoid exposure to the toxic aluminum. Go out and buy health cooking pots, pans and bake ware to protect you and your family from dangerous toxins.
A very important part of Healthy Cooking is avoiding exposure to dangerous toxins like aluminum from the pots you are cooking your food in.
The safest pots and pans to use for Healthy Cooking are those that don’t leach toxins into your food and the air you breathe.
Most non-stick pans expose you to dangerous chemicals when heated. Non-stick pans have a synthetic chemical called PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) which is released as toxic fumes into the air when the pan is heated. The non-stick coating begins to break down and release these toxins at temperatures as low as446F. The good news is there is a company that makes safe non-stick pots and pans called ScanPan. They cook evenly and conduct the heat quickly and best of all are 100% PFOA free so they are healthy for your cooking. I cook with these pans all the time and absolutely love them for my healthy cooking!
I highly recommend ceramic coated cast iron pots and pans for healthy cooking. The ceramic coating protects the iron from leaching into your food. French cooks have used cast iron pots and pans for centuries because they conduct heat the most evenly and create fabulous dishes. I have a set of these pots and pans that cook with all the time. I make soups, sauces, sautéed dishes and stir-fry’s in these pans and the results are always wonderful.
The other good thing is that these pans will probably last your lifetime and then you can hand them down to your kids. Some of my pots are over 40 years old and I use them all the time. They are also very easy to clean because of the ceramic surface. One of the most important things you can do for you and your family’s health is to get rid of your pots and pans that are leaching dangerous toxins into your food and replace them with safe and healthy cookware for healthy cooking.
As a member of the Healthy Cooking Club we will give you healthy cooking recipes and healthy cooking tips to help you prepare healthy and delicious meals for your family and friends.
Tags: food infection, food poisoning, healthy cooking, healthy cookware, safe cookware