How to cook for a healthy diet
![Man cooking a meal](/getmedia/10a3d234-26df-4b04-bbbf-5e50a9868409/man-cooking.jpg?w=1200&h=675&ext=.jpg&width=1360&resizemode=force)
How you cook is as important as what you cook when it comes to keeping your food healthy.
Here are 10 tips on how to keep your cooking healthy:
- Steam, bake, grill and boil instead of frying, deep frying or roasting.
- If frying, use non-stick cookware and don’t add any oil or fat.
- Use only very small amounts of healthier fats such as olive oil or rapeseed oil instead of butter or coconut oil.
- Trim all the fat from meat before cooking. Remove the skin from poultry.
- Don’t add salt. Use herbs and spices for flavour.
- To reduce nutrient losses, steam or microwave vegetables. If boiling use a small amount of water and don’t over boil. Cooked vegetables should still be firm.
- Cut vegetables into large chunks instead of smaller pieces before cooking. This helps reduce nutrient loss.
- Scrub instead of peeling potatoes. The skin contains lots of nutrients.
- Use low-fat milk instead of cream when making sauces.
- Use low-fat yoghurt instead of sour cream or mayonnaise in dips and dressings.