Healthful Hints
READ LABELS! The ingredients on food labels are listed in order of amount by weight – “first is most and least is last”.
Make sure juice and canned fruits are “no added sugar”.
Best to use olive, sunflower, vegetable, safflower, corn oils which are lower in saturated fat. (*I use “extra virgin” olive oils for veggies and light olive oil for baking)
Better to use oil than shortening. However avoid palm, palm kernel and coconut oils as they are very saturated.
Partially hydrogenated means they increase the degree of saturation.
Saturated fats tend to be solid at room temperature.
Poly unsaturated fats tend to be liquid at room temperature.
Cholesterol - All animal products contain it. Vegetable products do not.
The human body naturally makes cholesterol. It is called serum cholesterol.
Whole wheat flour is higher in fiber than white.
*Hint – mix them equally in recipes to gain the health benefit without making the product too heavy.
**Use a fine (coffee) grinder to grind up oatmeal to a floury powder – substitute for some of all of the white wheat flour in recipes! You can do the same with rice – to make rice powder in place of the white wheat. Light and fluffy results!
***Add mashed potato/potato flakes as part of your dry ingredients.
Keep bags of different frozen fruits in the freezer. Re-close well to prevent freezer burning. Handy for making syrups, milkshakes, smoothies, ice creams, frozen yogurts, popsicles or just eating.
When cooking with ground beef, turkey, elk, venison - throw in chopped or grated veggies such as: zucchini, onions, peppers, garlic, celery, cabbage, carrots.
The finished dish tastes better, goes farther and you get more of those all important vegetables into your family without them even realizing it.
Cook stews and soups ahead of serving time, and then chill. The foods will have time to develop more flavors and the fat will rise to the top and harden so it can be easily removed with a spoon before reheating.
Try ground turkey for a change. It’s lower in fat, calories and price!
Everything in moderation. Best to use as little of artificial sweetners as your tastes will allow.
Alert: - Sugar, saturated fat and salt is cheap. It doesn’t cost the companies as much as healthy foods. It is a fact that the more of those we eat… the more we crave. The “target market Experts” for the big food corporations know this. It is also what the general public has been conditioned to think tastes good. That is why there is so much of it to watch out for and avoid – especially in fast food places.
Are you allowing yourself to be their target?
Cook in non stick skillets and saucepans. Foods can be cooked with reduced amounts of fat or none at all.
Never use utensils that will scratch the Teflon surface of your pan.
Alert” Use a quality non stick pan and if the Teflon coating starts to peel off – THROW IT AWAY. It is dangerous.
NEVER EVER heat items in the microwave in anything made of plastic! They have now proven that even a piece of plastic wrap laid over the top of food as it is heated – literally drips diazonine (sp?) into the food. This is a cancer causing chemical.
- Ever notice that even the fast food places no longer are using as much Styrofoam containers for hot food items?
