13 ways to prepare healthy meals

Eating healthy is not only about eating raw fruits and vegetables as nobody can sustain this pattern of eating for long. In order to eat healthily, you just have to choose right cooking methods and food preparations that offer long term benefits to the body. Read on, to update yourself about the safest and healthiest ways to prepare meals.

Healthy eating and cooking involves preserving the vital nutrients present in all kinds of ingredients. One must also carefully pick the correct ingredients, apt cooking techniques and methods of preservation to keep the prepared food good enough to be consumed for a longer duration. Here are a few tips to help you prepare a healthy and safe meal each day.

1. Make use of the healthiest cooking methods, such as steaming, grilling, broiling, and roasting to prepare food.
2. Avoid deep frying as a preferred method of cooking to control consumption of unnecessary amount of fats in your diet.
3. Cook your meals in as little amount of water and for the shortest time possible to preserve the precious water soluble nutrients.
4. Add a variety of herbs and spices to your meal to incorporate minute yet very beneficial nutrients apart from making your dish more flavorful and appealing.
5. Avoid using too many processed foods that are high in preservatives and contains excess quantity of salt, sugar, and fats.
6. People who are more susceptible and prone to food borne illnesses must be cautious of the way they prepare their meals. It is important for them to wash all the raw fruits and vegetables well before cooking.
7. Washing hands before and after cooking, particularly meats, is also helpful to cook safe meals.
8. Store your meats, raw ingredients, cooked, and ready to eat foods separately to avoid cross contamination among the food products.
9. Make sure to cook your meats well enough. Use a cooking thermometer, if required, to cook your meats thoroughly.
10. Store hot foods above 140 degrees and cold below 40 degrees F to prevent any bacterial growth in food preparations.
11. Most importantly, whenever in doubt, just throw away the suspected food to keep yourself safe from contacting any food borne illness.
12. Some of the fruits and vegetables are heavily sprayed with pesticides and it is important to pick only organically grown versions of many produce, such as apples, grapes, nectarines, peaches, strawberries, celery, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and all the varieties of green leafy vegetables.
13. Select meats that are antibiotic free and marine product that has significantly low levels of mercury, such as shrimp, salmon, catfish, and Pollock. Avoid the likes of shark, king mackerel, swordfish, and tilefish, which have a high mercury content.