Ways to Cook Healthier

Not just what you eat, but how you cook your food could affect your risks for heart disease and cancer, according to the American Heart Association and American Cancer Society¹.

When you cook food too long, what you are making loses minerals, vitamins and antioxidants that improve health and make your body work better-especially your heart. You want to make sure these vitamins, minerals and other nutrients make it to your fork.

For example, did you ever wonder why when you cook kale or carrots in water, the water can turn a color? Have you ever noticed that what you are boiling looks a little faded? That’s because, along with the vegetable’s color, the cooking water is getting most of the heart-healthy stuff, too. A diet for a healthy heart calls for dark green, deep orange and yellow fruits and vegetables-such as spinach, carrots, peaches and berries. But if they look drab, you are not getting all that you need on that diet.

Healthier cooking methods are:

Steaming
Poaching
Broiling
Baking
Stir-frying

These methods cure proteins and soften vegetables without losing minerals, vitamins and anti-oxidants.

Also, keep cooking healthy by making it low salt, and stay away from fats that increase cholesterol. Use unsaturated fats such as olive, canola, corn and sunflower oils, and eat no more than 2,300 mg of salt* or sodium per day-about one teaspoon.

The Department of Health and Human Services website offers a lot of information about nutrition and fitness, such as a Heart Healthy Foods shopping list, information on how to get enough calcium and how to help a child stay at a healthy weight².

*On their labels, manufacturers also list salt as:

Monosodium glutamate, or MSG (often added to Chinese food)
Sodium citrate
Sodium sulfite
Sodium caseinate
Sodium benzoate
Sodium hydroxide
Disodium phosphate

Read more health and wellness tips

1 “Cooking for Lower Cholesterol,” American Heart Association, last updated June 14, 2011, http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/Cholesterol/PreventionTreatmentofHighCholesterol/Cooking-for-Lower-Cholesterol_UCM_305630_Article.jsp

2 Department of Health and Human Services, last updated August 3, 2011, http://healthfinder.gov/prevention/category.aspx?catId=1

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