With so many opportunities for making holiday meals approaching, Sweet Life Wellness wants you to take the opportunity to consider ways to take your cooking at home to an even healthier level! Too often, we home cooks believe the lie that making healthy food is difficult and time consuming. Yet with these tips below, your everyday cooking will improve! Read on for DC Metro Area dietitian Kay Loughrey’s suggestions for healthy cooking!
Tip #1 Meal preparation: the secret to meal success!
One of the best ways to set yourself up for success in preparing healthy meals is to plan! Meal preparation takes two parts: building a meal map for your week and preparing as much food in advance as possible for the week ahead! Creating a plan for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and healthy snacks will make your shopping and meal preparation a breeze!
Tip #2 Watch your sodium levels!
Studies have shown that using salt for cooking and adding table salt is one of the top contributors to excessive sodium in your diet. This excessive salt is often the cause of high blood pressure, which can lead to serious heart concerns. The American Heart Association recommends eliminating salt from cooking as much as possible and to remove your saltshaker form your table! Keep reading for the best alternatives to using salt!
Tip #3 Learn to use spices!
The American Heart Association recommends replacing excessive use of salt for cooking and seasoning with the use of spices! There are so many spices and herbs to experiment with that you will never notice the absence of salt. Visit the American Heart Association at this link here to view their list on 26 most used spices and herbs.
Tip #4 The secret healthy ingredient: extra virgin olive oil!
One secret healthy ingredient you can add to your daily cooking is extra virgin olive oil. Studies have shown that extra virgin olive oil may help lower heart disease risk through lowering blood pressure. Instead of adding other cooking oils that may be contributing to raising LDL (Low-density lipoprotein: cholesterol that increases health risks) levels, try adding extra virgin olive oil instead!
Tip #5 Use fresh and whole unprocessed products!
It can be so tempting to prepare meals with pre-cooked and pre-packaged foods. But nutritionally, it is better to cook with foods that are as fresh as possible! This ensures that the foods you are using have as much nutrients as possible without any added ingredients that would not be beneficial. One way to purchase truly fresh foods is by visiting a grocery store with a reputation for high quality fresh foods or by regularly visiting a farmer’s market.
Tip #6 Try steaming more often!
Our last tip for healthy cooking is to steam vegetables and fruits more often! Boiling vegetables may be easier than steaming but it removes more of the nutrients that steaming does as the food being prepared sits directly in the water. However, steamed food is cooked thoroughly yet does not sit directly in the water and many nutrients are saved that way. Steaming also eliminates the need for cooking oil, which means your steamed food is even more healthy.
Cooking healthy meals at home can be daunting, and often the time to do so can seem hard to manage. Yet with these helpful tips from Sweet Life Wellness, you will have several more tools to begin cooking healthier at home! Since we are in the fall season now, you can learn more about healthy fall meals here.
Resources
MD Anderson Cancer Center. “17 Healthy Cooking Tips.” University of Texas. https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/17-healthy-cooking-tips.h19-1592991.html. October 2019. Accessed November 7, 2023.
American Heart Association. “How to Cook Healthier at Home.” https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/cooking-skills/cooking/how-to-cook-healthier-at-home. February 2, 2017. Accessed November 7, 2023.
Better Health, Department of Health. “Healthy Cooking Tips and Recipe Suggestions.” State of Government, Australia. https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/healthy-cooking-tips. September 9, 2022. Accessed November 7, 2023.
Mana Medical Associates. “Learn to Cook, Get Healthy.” Medical Associates of Northwest Arkansas. https://mana.md/learn-to-cook-get-healthy/. Accessed November 7, 2023.
National Library of Medicine. “Cooking Without Salt.” MedlinePlus. https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000760.htm. June 22, 2022. Accessed November 7, 2023.
American Heart Association. “Shaking the Salt Habit to Lower High Blood Pressure.” https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/high-blood-pressure/changes-you-can-make-to-manage-high-blood-pressure/shaking-the-salt-habit-to-lower-high-blood-pressure. June 1, 2023. Accessed November 7, 2023.
American Heart Association. “The benefits of adding a drizzle of olive oil to your diet.” https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/09/28/the-benefits-of-adding-a-drizzle-of-olive-oil-to-your-diet. September 28, 2022. Accessed November 7, 2023.
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Kay Loughrey, MPH, RDN, LDN
Transformational Speaker, Breakthrough Coach, Nutritionist-Dietitian
Karis N. Hicks
North Carolina Central University
M.S. – Nutrition Studies
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