Healthier Cooking Methods to Learn

by Alesha Wilson
(Wilmington, NC)

When you start eating healthy, you not only need to choose the food you’re going to consume. You will also need to learn cooking techniques that will help you lose weight. Frying is a familiar way to quickly cook your food, but because you are trying to avoid greasy dishes, you need to find alternatives.

Instead of oil, try using water as a cooking tool. Water is versatile because you can add flavoring to it to create a base and even use it as the main ingredient of your dish. Vegetables, in particular, are often cooked in pure water. Here are some cooking methods using water.

Steaming involves boiling water and using the steam to cook your food. There are certain food types that are great for this method, like ground pork or chicken shaped into small balls, and raw vegetables cut in small pieces. Fish is also great for steaming because it cooks fast at maximum heat.

If you don’t have a steamer, you can make do by placing a metal strainer over boiling water and placing the vegetable and meats in the strainer. The important thing is to keep the food suspended over the boiling water so that the steam can directly cook the food. Don’t forget to cover the whole thing because you want the steam to circulate around your food longer before it escapes.

Why is steaming one of the best ways to prepare healthy food? You don’t have to add anything extra to your dishes because the steam traps the flavors inside the meat or vegetable.

Some people find that steaming can be quite slow and should only be used when completely thawed out seafood is being cooked. Boiling the water up to the point where steam is freely liberated from the surface could take long. On the plus side, you’re less likely to overcook your dishes if you use this method.

An alternative to steaming is boiling, which involves immersing the meat or vegetable in water. This cooking method can be very thorough. You don’t have to worry about undercooked chicken or pork. For vegetables, however, it is prudent to boil them only for a short while because too much boiling can overcook most vegetables. Also, don’t leave the greens in very hot water because they will continue to cook even after you’ve turned off the heat.

Boiling can allow you to use cheaper cuts of meat because slow boiling can make even the toughest parts edible. If you’re cooking for a large crowd, boiling is the ideal cooking method. The negative aspect of boiling involves losing some of the natural flavors of the meats or vegetables. The boiling water may also strip off a lot of the nutrients in the peel of vegetables.

Alesha Wilson writes about gymnema sylvestre
for Natural Health Sherpa where she works as a staff writer.