Top Ten Healthy Cooking Tips

Nutritious cooking starts with the healthy, fresh and good ingredients that you use to prepare your meals. You simply need to know the very basic laws of nutritious cooking, and you can easily prepare healthy meals, without worrying too much about it. It can even make it easier to prepare meals quickly because you don't need to look for some real exotic ingredients.

Below are certain quick and easy tips that can help you in making your meals more nutritious.

1) Make it a habit to plan your menu in advance and serve the food that is freshly cooked to prevent reheating. Reheating destroys the nutritive value of foods and also changes the original taste of the food.

2) Cover the food with cling film (plastic wrap) before string in the refrigerator to prevent mixing of flavors. Food is to be used not only as a source of calories but also as nourishment to grow, maintain and repair tissues of the body and also prevent disease.

3) Never over-cook the vegetables. The more you cook them, the less nutrition they'll offer to you. Fresh and tender vegetables cook quickly and do not need a lot of seasoning and spices to taste good.

4) These days almost all the vegetables you buy from market are covered with fertilizers and pesticides. To remove them, wash the vegetables in a sink full of potassium permanganate. Then rinse them with plain water. Cut and cook.

5) If your space provides, try to have a little kitchen garden for some basic food ingredients like mint, basil, coriander, chilies etc.You don't need a full field space to have one. These days you can find easy portable pots to include in your kitchen. The greenery will definitely make your kitchen and home look good, along with providing natural and fresh source of ingredients to your meals.

6) Never cook green leafy vegetables in acids like lime or tamarind, as the olive green color of the green vegetables that comes because of these acids indicate that the nutrients from these vegetables wouldn't be absorbed easily by our bodies.

7) To make sure that the food is not overcooked in a pressure cooker, first boil the water without putting the lid on the cooker. Then when it is boiling add the ingredients and cover the lid tightly and cook on low flame for some time till you feel the food is cooked instead of pressure cooking on high flame with many whistles of the cooker.

Buy unpolished and small sized pulses and legumes as some of the vital nutrients get lost in polishing and processing them.

8) Onions are a rich source of quercetin, which is a very significant phytochemical and antioxidant. But the mistake we usually make is that we cut them immediately before having it. Onion should be cut and kept for at least 10 minutes before serving as oxidation helps quercetin to get activated.

9) Milk purchased from a dairy which is not pasteurized should be boiled for at least 10 - 15 minutes at boiling temperature to eliminate the effect of any bacteria or other germs.

10) It can be dangerous using wrong cookware. Never use painted and decorated pots and pans. Some are made of lead and silver toxin material. This can lead to severe digestive disorders. Using aluminum vessels for cooking can cause high levels of aluminum in the brain tissue, because it is tough to remove aluminum from the body. People suffering from Alzheimer's disease have high aluminum in brain tissue. Pyrex and stainless steel is the safest cookware.

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Chocolate Milk after workout can speed up post-exercise recovery

A new study has shown that chocolate milk intake after a workout can speed up your post-exercise performance and muscle repair process.

In a sequence of four studies, done at the American College of Sports Medicine conference this week, researchers discovered that chocolate milk provided a recovery benefit to facilitate in repairing and rebuilding muscles, as compared to specifically formulated carbohydrate sports drinks.

According to the new study, consuming fat free chocolate milk after exercise can assist the body in retaining, replenishing and rebuilding muscles and speed up the recovery process.

Consuming low fat chocolate milk after an arduous workout can even help in preparing the muscles to perform better in a consequent round of exercise. Below are listed certain advantages of chocolate milk that the researchers discovered: 

1) To build muscle

Post-exercise muscle biopsies in 8 averagely trained male runners displayed that after consuming 16 ounces of fat free chocolate milk, the runners had intensified skeletal muscle protein synthesis - a sign that muscles were more capable to repair and rebuild, as compared to when they drank a carbohydrate only sports drink with the same amount of calories. The researchers indicated that "athletes can consider fat-free chocolate milk as an economic nutritional alternative to other sports nutrition beverages to support post-endurance exercise skeletal muscle repair."

2) To replenish muscle fuel

It is essential to replace muscle fuel (glycogen) after exercise for athlete's future performance and muscle recovery. Researchers discovered that consuming 16 ounces of fat free chocolate milk with its mix of carbohydrates and protein (as compared to a carbohydrate-only sports drink with the same amount of calories) contributed to enhanced concentration of glycogen in muscles at 30 and 60 minutes post exercise.

3) To maintain lean muscle

Athletes usually risk muscle breakdown post-exercise when the body's requirements are at their pinnacle. Researchers discovered that consuming fat free chocolate milk after exercise assisted in decreasing markers of muscle breakdown compared to drinking a carbohydrate sports drink.

4) To enhance the subsequent exercises

Ten trained men and women cyclists rode for an hour and a half, followed by 10 minutes of intervals. They took rest for four hours and were given one of three drinks immediately and two hours into recovery: low-fat chocolate milk, a carbohydrate drink with the same amount of calories or a control drink. When the cyclists performed a subsequent 40 kilometer ride after this, their trial time was considerable lesser after drinking the chocolate milk compared to the carbohydrate drink and the control drink.

As for why chocolate milk, researchers indicate that chocolate milk's combination of carbohydrates and high-quality protein first made researchers take notice of a potential exercise advantage. The combination of carbs and protein already in chocolate milk matched the ratio found to be most beneficial for recovery. In fact, studies propose that chocolate milk has the right mix of carbs and protein to help in refueling exhausted muscles, and the protein in milk facilitates in building lean muscles.



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Tips to get a Healthy Heart

A strong heart is a result of healthy lifestyle choices. So, one should aim to be active and stress-free.

Today's fast-paced life and work pressures have escalated our stress levels and taking a toll on one's heart. We must realize that the healing power of the body decreases when under stress, leading to many complications like hypertension and poor immunity. Today, even youngsters are prone to heart ailments.

So, it's really important to stay healthy and manage your stress levels by understanding the risk factors which are usually high cholesterol levels, stressful lifestyle, smoking, and lack of exercise. Below are certain simple steps which can help you in changing your lifestyle to a healthy and happy one:

1) Avoid smoking

Smoking brings down life expectancy by 15-25 years. If you are a smoker, you are twice more likely to get a heart attack than a non-smoker. The moment you stop smoking, the risk of heart attack begins to decrease too.

2) Cut down on salt

Too much salt can cause high blood pressure, which increases the risk of developing coronary heart disease.

3) Watch your diet

Try to have a balanced diet. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables, starch foods such as wholegrain bread and rice.

4) Monitor your alcohol

Too much alcohol can damage the heart muscle, increase blood pressure and also lead to weight gain. Avoid intake of alcohol or at least limit it to one to two units a day, gradually decreasing the consumption.

5) Get active

At least aim for 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day. Keeping yourself fit not only benefits the heart but also improves mental health and well-being.

6) Monitor your BP, blood sugar and cholesterol levels

Routine medical check-ups will ring an alarm, if you need medical help.

7) Manage your waist

Cholesterol deposition in blood vessels begins in the first decade of life. Carrying a lot of extra weight as fat can greatly affect your health. Make small but healthy changes in your diet.

8) Manage your stress level

If you find things are getting on top of you, you may fail to eat properly, smoke and drink too much. This may increase your risk of a heart attack. Practice yoga/meditation. Take a vacation.

9) Check your family history

If a close relative is at risk of developing coronary heart disease from smoking, high BP, high cholesterol, lack of physical activity, obesity and diabetes, then you could be at risk too.

10) Laughter is the best medicine

Laughing and staying happy will work wonders for you. It is an instant way to unleash the pressure and it makes you feel light too.

So follow the simple tips given above and love the heart that makes you love your closed ones!

    

Why we buy less healthy food for others?

Consumers choose foods that are less healthy when they are purchasing for others, a new study has found.

The study has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

In a series of studies on food choice, author Juliano Laran (University of Miami) discovered that consumers exert more self-control when they make choices for themselves.

In one study, participants were asked to make a sequence of four choices from 16 items that were healthy (items like raisins, celery sticks, and cheerios) or indulgent (items like chocolate bars, cookies, Doritos, ice cream, and doughnuts). Half of the participants were asked to choose four items for themselves, while the others were asked to choose four items for a friend.

"When making choices for themselves, participants chose a balance of healthy and indulgent food items," Laran writes. "When making choices for others, however, participants chose mostly indulgent food items."

The author conducted another study of real consumers exiting a supermarket, which confirmed the earlier results, and showed that consumers bought equally indulgent items when purchasing for their families, friends, or roommates. A final study showed that consumer choices became more balanced after they were made aware of a healthy goal when making choices for others.

The author suggests that education could help consumers make more balanced choices when they are shopping for others. He also suggests that this phenomenon may be affecting public health.

"One of the reasons the population gets more and more obese is that a lot of the food we consume is chosen by other people, like friends throwing a party or parents buying for their children," Laran writes. "Taking responsibility for their own choices instead of letting others choose could help consumers fight against obesity and lead a healthier lifestyle."