by Molly Carter

Created on: August 22, 2007

Bon Apetit! Cooking healthy can be flavorful and delicious...it just takes a little practice. The first step to cooking healthy is getting out there and buying healthy foods. You refrigerator should have a plethora of fresh vegetables, fruit, and lean meats and your pantry should have mounds of whole grains, brown rice, whole wheat pastas, beans, olive oil, and spices, spices and more spices.

Prepackaged items are riddled with chemicals and sodium, so keep those to a bare minimum. If you want a few stand by's check out Trader Joe's or a local health food store. These items are usually mostly organic, use fresh ingredients and are healthy alternatives to TV Dinners and lean pockets.

Next, ask your friends and relatives for some tasty recipes. Buy a discounted healthy recipe book or jump on line and google any item and a plethora of recipes will pop up.

When you're cooking to be health conscious stay away from fried foods. Instead of french fries, cut up a potato and broil it with a dash of salt...instant healthy french fries. The oven will be your new best friend. You can broil, bake and steam to your hearts content.

Instead of drenching your vegetables in butter. Steam them and sprinkle a little Lawry's seasoning salt, or lemon pepper on top. They will be fresh, have flavor and contain a lot more of the original vitamins than if you had boiled it. If you love pizza, make whole wheat pizza dough and load it with tomato sauce that is loaded with vitamins and top it off with a reduced fat cheese and all the veggies you love. If you love meat, use ham or chicken that isn't processed.

In casseroles, use brown rice instead of white. If you're making pasta, use whole wheat pasta instead of the regular kind. In lasagnas use low fat ricotta cheese and throw in some spinach or cut up broccoli to get some extra vegetables. If you're craving cookies, use oats, whole wheat flower and half of the chocolate chips.

Learning to make small changes in the way you view cooking will save you a lot of extra calories and fat. Little tricks of the trade like blotting the cheese on your pizza can save you up to 40 calories and 4 grams of fat per serving. Freezing grapes or calcium rich orange juice as a treat instead of ice cream saves you hundreds of calories and dozens of grams of fat.

Cooking is fun. So have an adventure. Make your own creations. Spice it up to your taste. But, most of all enjoy! Bon Apetit!

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