A healthy diet can be adhered to even when you are short on time or when your budget is tight. What it takes is – creativity! We know that a healthy life involves physical activity, but nutrition is an equally important factor for our health and appearance. So let’s try to make it easier to prepare healthy meals and not have a headache on a daily basis, among other things, what we will eat healthy today.
The best way to prepare healthy food is to prepare a meal that you will eat for the next few days. For example, plan, store, pack and have meals for lunch and dinner for the next 4 days.
Tips
-This type of preparation will save you time – a couple of hours a day versus a couple of hours of shopping, thinking and preparation every day! Over time, you will need less and less time that day as you prepare it for the coming days.
-Meals at restaurants, bakeries and fast food, which we succumb to due to availability and lack of time, will surely cost you more than planned, healthy, home-cooked meals.
-When you know you have a ready meal, you are less likely to reach for a less healthy alternative and will find it easier to stay on a healthy diet and closer to your individual goals.
-Our advice is to start gradually because every change requires getting used to. So, do not immediately try to prepare your meal for the whole week, as it may be that the initial confusion and errors in estimates will distract you from the original idea. Start preparing your meal for the next 2 days.
Healthy preparation
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The most important thing is to preserve everything nutritionally and remain useful. Use healthy sources of fat to prepare. The methods you should use are cooking, steaming, blanching, baking, stewing, grilling.
Avoid unhealthy preparation methods
Frying is the most unhealthy way. Unhealthy, refined oil and high temperatures are used. Such food is full of oil. Frying as a preparation method is the most unacceptable method. Definitely avoid this.
Fried is the worst combination because besides being very greasy, it is coated in flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs, so it absorbs even more oil.
Bad food contains too much sugar and salt. One particular problem is that most people are not aware of this because they do not read the declarations. And they almost have nothing nutritious in themselves, because everything nutrient is destroyed by this kind of processing.
Pregnant women, children, old people and people with compromised immunity should be especially careful. These include those suffering from chronic diseases, especially the GI tract, such as colitis. They need to take this as a priority.
Meal variety
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Each time you prepare another recipe, set aside one meal so that you can use it later in the week, in a different combination. Quite simply, some of us do not like their meals to be the same or similar every day, so they can cheat the regimen and change the order. If these meals need to be frozen, they should consist of foods with a small amount of water. You can also prepare different toppings, sauces with the same meals to please your taste buds. Also, use frozen vegetables and fruits as you can find the most varied. Keep an eye on where you buy them, whether the freezers are as good and quality as the ones at 512 Refrigeration. Because if they are not of good quality, there may be a problem of melting and freezing again.
Cooking vegetables, meat and cereals
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-Vegetables, if possible, should be cooked without peeling (potatoes, beets) because then the loss of nutrients is also smaller, and with the lid on.
-Vegetables are cooked in as little water as possible only when the water boils, then the loss of nutrients is minimal. An exception is legumes (beans, lentils, peas), which are placed in cold water and cooked.
-Vegetables are boiled in boiling water at 100 ° C, except for starchy vegetables (at 85-99 ° C).
-The cooking time of vegetables in water depends on the type of vegetables, maturity and size. Cooked vegetables should be soft and slightly crispy.
– The water in which the vegetables were cooked should not be thrown away but used for various dishes: soups, stews, sauces. This does not apply to beans.
-Vegetable stews and soups are salted at the end of cooking, while mashed potatoes, stews and salads are salted at the beginning of cooking.
-When cooking meat, the meat should be completely submerged in water and the pan covered. More qualitative meat is obtained if the meat is put into boiling water and it is juicier and tastier.
-When stews and meat soups are cooked, the meat is placed in cold water. Then the broth tastes better.
-Meat cooking time depends on the age and type of animal.
-Cooking cereals yields a variety of porridges.
Blanching
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-Food (vegetables and fruits) can be blanched in boiling water, briefly dipping (kale, cabbage, cauliflower).
-Blanching is the process by which raw food is subjected to the action of boiling salted water or water vapor, in a shorter time of 1-3 minutes or 3-5 minutes.
-The food blanching system is closed.
-After blanching, the food is dipped briefly in cold water.
-Blanching vegetables and fruits retain their natural color.
Steaming
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-Steam can be cooked: vegetables, fruits, meat, dough, literally anything.
-Steaming time is approximately the time of cooking in water.
-The loss of nutrients in steaming is less than cooking in water. This way of preparing food is better both in terms of preserving minerals in foods as well as the value of proteins in them.
-Practically, easy to use, you can buy a steam cooker at any hardware store.
-Steaming is also recommended in the diet.
Baking
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-Most often, meat, fish, vegetables (peppers, potatoes, etc.) are baked, fruits and various types of dough.
-When baking, the temperature should always be higher at first until it is lightly baked and then the temperature is lowered.
-Baked foods can cause irritation to the digestive system in sensitive individuals. Therefore, it is necessary for risk groups to pay attention to the proper preparation of food by baking or to choose one of the other methods of heat treatment.
Grilling
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-Grilled meat, fish and some vegetables.
-Grilled foods are loved by many precisely because the food tastes better than other forms of healthy preparation.
-You can grill on electric or grill or on a special grill pan, all without the addition of any fat. It is healthy to grill on an electric grill.
-The grilling food is of high quality, juicy and delicious.
Conclusion:
When you want and you can afford it, add whatever you want and make your own ideal combinations.
Also, all of the above foods are very useful for good physical fitness, muscle building and overall well-being. We hope we have convinced you to eat healthily.
