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Here are some excerpts from an article that could affect your family’s health beneficially.
It describes the best and worst ways to cook your food.
The right foods for your family to eat are obviously those with good nutritional value, but the way they’re prepared can have a huge impact on your health.
Some cooking methods will preserve the food’s nutrients and flavor, but others can actually diminish nutrient content and create harmful substances within your food.
What about the microwave? While some believe microwaving is a fast way to cook food without a lot of extra oils, it is also believed that it can change the chemical structure of the food in unknown, potentially negative, ways, while reducing fragile nutrients.
It is always preferable to cook foods at lower temperatures than higher temperatures. This is because the nutrients are better preserved. Also, high heat causes the oil you use to be damaged (oxidized), thus posing health risks.
However, there are many cooking methods out there that are good for you and provide good-tasting food.
Outlined below are some of the most popular cooking methods, starting with the healthiest methods and ending with the worst.
1. Eat Your Foods Raw
It’s not exactly a cooking method, but it is a very healthy way to consume many of your favorite foods. Raw foods, advocates say, are higher in vitamins and nutrients, which are destroyed by cooking.
2. Steaming
Put a little water in a pot, put in a steamer basket or colander, and add your food. As the water boils, the steam will gently cook your food. Don’t cook your food for too long (veggies should still be brightly colored and slightly crunchy when they’re done). If desired, add some spices to the water to flavor the foods as they steam.
This method works especially well for fragile vegetables like leafy greens and fish.
3. Poaching
You can poach various foods by simmering them in a covered pan in a little bit of water or broth.
4. Baking/Roasting
Baking is a healthy way to cook, though it’s preferable to use a lower temperature, and a longer cooking time, than a higher temperature to cook the food more quickly. You can bake meat, fish, poultry, veggies, bread, fruit and anything else. To keep in some of the moisture, keep your baking dish covered for awhile.
5. Stir-Frying
Stir-frying is a fast, healthy way to cook. Chop your meat and veggies into small, uniform pieces, add a little oil or broth to a pan, then stir the foods until they’re just cooked through. To preserve the nutrients in the veggies, cook them only slightly.
6. Braising
To braise a piece of meat or fish, brown it slightly in a pan, then cover it with a small amount of liquid such as broth. The pan is covered, and the food is left to slowly finish cooking.
7. Boiling
Boiled foods are healthy because no harmful substances form when using this cooking method. However, there is some concern that nutrients may be lost when foods are boiled. Steaming is a preferable cooking method.
8. Sautéing
Sautéing (cooking foods in a small amount of oil on your stovetop) is an acceptable form of cooking, although it does pose the problem of oxidizing oils. You may replace the oil with some broth instead, and don’t turn the heat up too high.
9. Grilling and Broiling
People love to grill their foods, but there are some potential problems to be aware of. Barbecue grill smoke contains cancer-causing chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Meanwhile, heterocyclic amines form when food is cooked at a high temperature, such as those used in grilling and broiling. The chemicals have been linked to cancer.
Advanced Glycation End (AGEs) products are also produced when meats are cooked at high temperatures. AGEs, according to researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, build up in your body over time leading to oxidative stress, inflammation and an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease.
10. Frying
Frying foods is the absolute worst way to cook your foods. The high temperatures produce cancer-causing heterocyclic amines, along with AGEs. Meanwhile, frying exposes your foods to large amounts of oxidized (rancid) vegetable oils, which then soak into your food and wreak havoc in your body.
Well, you now can choose a cooking method that suits the taste-buds and good health of your family.
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Roshmi & Jay
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