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Cooking Secrets

Mealtimes should be moments of pleasure, relaxation, fun, and sharing with your family and friends. Don’t ruin the moment with feelings of guilt. Remember you should not feel guilty for eating something tasty, and eating healthy shouldn’t be boring. There is tasty and healthy food! You just need to learn some easy cooking tips to make sure your favorite meals are healthy.

The first tip is to always choose one of the following cooking methods: baking, grilling, sautéing, or boiling. These methods require less fat during the preparation.

Cooking Secrets

When choosing meat, make sure to pick a lean cut, for example: loin or sirloin. If you prefer chicken, try to eat white meat, like the breast, and not dark meat, which is higher in fat. Also remember to remove the skin from poultry before cooking it to reduce the fat content. Fish is a great, low-fat option; it contains fatty acids that are good for your heart’s health.


Below are some recommendations for healthy ingredient substitutes. With these small changes, you will be able to reduce the amount of fat and calories in your meals, without sacrificing their flavor.

  • Use skim milkinstead of whole milk, in the same amounts.
  • Instead of using cream, blend half the amount of low-fat cottage cheesewith half the amount of plain, low-fat yogurt.
  • Use non-fat sour creaminstead of the regular version.
  • Use light or fat-free cream cheeseinstead of regular cream cheese. You can also blend 1 cup of cottage cheesewith 4 tablespoons of margarine.
  • Replace butter with margarineor vegetable oil.
  • Use non-stick vegetable oil sprayto cook, whenever possible.
  • To reduce the amount of cholesterol in your recipes, replace one whole egg with 2 egg whitesplus 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil.
  • Use light mayonnaiseinstead of regular.
  • When making desserts, use 3 tablespoons of sugar-free cocoainstead of 1 oz of chocolate.Replace butter with apple purée.
  • Choose sugar-free marmalade or jelly.
  • Use different natural spicesto season your food instead of adding more fat.

As you have probably noticed by now, cooking healthy is pretty easy. Now you just need to decide to make the changes needed to transform your diet and improve your health.

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