Cooking at home is one of the healthiest things you can do for your body. But there are many cooking habits that can actually cause weight gain. Below you will find 5 such habits that many of us are guilty of making.
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1. You are cooking with the wrong oils. You should have more than one type of oil in your kitchen–one for salad dressings and one for cooking. Every oil has a smoking point, which is the temperature at which the oil starts to burn. Oil is fat, and when you heat fat, it starts to disintegrate into glycerol and fatty acids. As the temperature keeps rising, the glycerol breaks down even further into acrolein, which is a chemical compound that is toxic to our health, and it's what makes the food cooked in burnt oil taste horrible. Olive oil, flaxseed oil and walnut oil should be used for salad dressings because they have a low smoking point. For cooking, coconut oil, grapeseed oil and sunflower oil should be used because those can withstand high temperatures without burning.
2. You are limiting your ways of flavoring foods. Salt, sugar, pepper and fat are not the only ways to spruce up your food. If you have not yet discovered the world of herbs and spices, you are severely limiting your taste palate. Spices and herbs add color and rich flavor to your dishes and provide many health benefits. You can seamlessly use these to limit the need for salt, sugar and fat. These also contain powerful antioxidants, minerals, vitamins and enzymes that are much more effective than what something like sugar might have.
3. You are using too much oil. It is easy to overuse oil, after all, it is a liquid. But you have to remember that oil contains calories. Some contain 100 calories per tablespoon. There are many ways to keep your oil usage in check. If you are following a recipe, strictly stick to the quantities mentioned in the instructions. If you have to use measuring spoons, go ahead and don't hold back. You can even spray the oil on if you are scared of pouring too much from the bottle. You can use a non-stick pan to sauté the vegetable or just enough oil to make sure the food doesn't stick to the bottom. You could steam the vegetables before so that you don't need all that much oil to cook them fully or you can add some water along with the oil especially if you are cooking porous vegetables that soak up all the liquid in the pan.
4. You overload the pan. Sometimes our impatience makes us do weird things, such as cramping up the pan with ingredients till it gets overloaded. Instead of accelerating the process, this actually prolongs the cooking time, and what you end up with is a big pile of mushy ingredients. Plus, forget about sautéing without making a mess. Overfilling the pan will not give you the desired crispy results. If you are cooking for a large group of people, do so in smaller batches. Your guests will be very pleased.
5. You stir too often. Stirring doesn't make your food cook faster, and many of us actually do it to prevent our dish from getting burned. But stirring too often is not good unless you want mushy or broken food. Stirring can also prevent the browning of the ingredients, which is what brings out the flavor in the resulting dish. So sit back and let the ingredients rest in that pot.
This post was originally published on August 14, 2014.
