Eating healthy food doesn’t have to be a chore and can make a real difference to your life. Sure, everyone from time to time slips into a bad habit or two, such as overdoing the burger and fries or having too much soda or even a little too much alcohol. However, as long as those don’t turn into permanent habits where you are damaging your health because of what you put into your body, you can use lots of ways to prepare and eat healthily and enjoyably.
Take the time for preparation
It is, unfortunately, so easy to slip into resorting to pre-packed foods or takeouts when you’ve had a hard day at work and you’re tired. However, if you’re prepared with the right tools that can make things really easy for cooking or making a delicious salad, then you don’t have to spend hours in the kitchen to whip up a tasty meal. Once you’ve got into the swing of it, you’ll wonder why you’d never done it before.
Here are some ideas for some great tools to help make your food preparation so much easier and give you all the nutrition that you need.
Getting the right pans
Pan-cooked food can often be tarnished because of the fats that you use in the pan. Now and again that can be fine, but if you want to eat healthier, you need to look for a pan that will let you cook without those additional fats. You can, of course, use a variety of oils for pan cooking, including olive, corn, and vegetable, as well as butter.
One of the healthiest ways to prepare your pan-cooked food is by using a Gotham Steel pan, allowing you to sear steaks and retain their delicious juices, broil fish just enough so that the flesh doesn’t get tough, and simmer a whole range of sauces. You can also sauté vegetables, such as potatoes and mushrooms, without the need for added fat – the perfect way to enjoy some really healthy meals.
For boiling vegetables, make sure that you have some sturdy copper-bottomed pans so that the heat is quickly transferred to the water and results in less electricity or gas used when cooking.
A quality blender
Fruit and vegetables are an essential part of having a healthy diet, and when you have the time, especially in the morning, it’s ideal to sit down with a grapefruit or some oranges to get plenty of vitamin C and fiber into your body.
If you’re in a rush in the morning, you can easily grab some fruit and put it into a quality blender to give yourself the perfect smoothie or shake. You need a blender that will take out any lumps to give you that professional smoothie texture, and you can experiment with all sorts of fruits and vegetables – try mixing them up – to achieve your favorite flavor. You can also prep these at night, quickly and simply, so that they’re ready for you in the morning.
Salad chopping
Sometimes, it seems as though preparing a salad can be hard work, chopping away with a sharp knife; however, actually, it is worth it as salad is one of the healthiest types of meals that you could have. Raw salad means that you get the benefit of all the nutrients without any of them being taken out by cooking. The crunch of a fresh salad, with lettuce, radishes, cucumber, young tomatoes, and any number of other ingredients, sends a signal to your body that it is going to like very much.
Invest in a salad chopper, throw your ingredients into a bowl, and chop away until you have things exactly how you want them. It’ll save you a lot of time, and you can prepare exactly as much as you want so that there is no wastage.
Preserving leftovers
Food wastage is a huge problem, especially in the Western world, so rather than throw things out, you can get jars that have airtight seals that will help preserve many different foods. You want to preserve freshness, so using these can help with foods such as lemons, avocados, and zucchini so that they don’t spoil or dehydrate. Plan your menus ahead, and you can use everything that you buy over a number of days and save yourself money.
Eating well
It doesn’t have to be a hassle to eat well. Healthy food is easy to prepare, and if you put the time aside, you’ll soon find that there is a real difference in how you eat and the health benefits that follow after.