The Truth About Cooking With Fats and Oils

Why Cook With Fat, Anyway?
Fat's not all bad! Fat makes foods juicy and tender. It adds flavour and texture to what you cook. It also prevents sticking and gives baked goods their flakiness and sauces their silkiness. Try to cut all the fat out of your diet and you'll miss out on taste and even some health benefits.

What's a Smoke Point?
A smoke point is the temperature at which oil starts to smoke. It may also burn. The hotter your pan, the higher your oil's "smoke point" should be. For grilling or searing, try avocado or sunflower oil. For frying, try canola or peanut oil.

Avoid a Grease Trap
Heat the oil well -- till it's shimmering, not smoking -- and then add your food to the pan. Go light on it when you're sautéing or pan-frying. That way, the food absorbs less oil. Don't let food cool off in the pan; your food acts like a vacuum with oil, becoming too greasy. Remove food from the pan as soon as it's cooked and drain or blot it.

Best for Baking
Grape seed, olive, peanut, and canola oils all have high smoke points. And they're healthy, too! Use them in baking recipes for muffins, cookies, or dense cakes. They can also be used for oven-roasting or stir-frying. Macadamia nut oil has a stronger flavour, but also works well for stir-frying and roasting.

Light-Duty Oils
Corn, hemp, pumpkin seed, sesame, soybean, and walnut oils all work well in low-temperature baking recipes (like granola), for light or quick sautés, and for sauces.

On Top of a Salad
Fruity or nutty-flavored oils such as toasted sesame, extra-virgin olive, avocado, or walnut oil taste great in salad dressings. To make your own dressing, add 3-4 parts oil to 1 part wine vinegar or lemon juice. Then add salt, pepper, and flavors like garlic or shallots to taste. Put the dressing in a small jar with a tight lid and shake it.

EVOO vs. Regular Olive Oil
The main differences between EVOO and other olive oils are taste and processing. EVOO has less acid than other kinds, so it's considered the best-quality olive oil. The amount of fat and calories are the same in all olive oils. You might find lower-quality olive oils to be tasteless compared to EVOO.

For the Perfect Sauté
For sautéed vegetables or proteins, choose a neutral-flavored oil -- like canola, olive, grape seed, rice bran, safflower, or peanut oil -- that can hold up to medium or high heat. Olive oil stands up to strong-flavored greens like spinach and broccoli rabe and also dishes seasoned with onion or garlic.

Don't Guess: Measure the Oil
You might use more oil than you really need. Too much oil adds calories and may affect how your food tastes. You probably only need 1 tablespoon of oil or other fat to sauté 3 to 4 servings of meat or fish in a 10-inch skillet.

When a Spritz Will Do
Spray oil like Pam is good for baking and quick sautéing. You can cover a pan with a little bit of fat. Spray oils contain an ingredient that keeps food from sticking to the pan. But that ingredient, lecithin, can gum up at high heat. So if you're grilling, choose a spray that works in high heat.

Fats for Flavour and Flakiness
To reach "flaky" perfection in biscuits or pie crusts, you might use a solid fat like butter, lard, or vegetable shortening. You may also have recipes that taste better with a dollop of bacon fat or duck fat. But these fats are the unhealthy kind. Replacing them with low-fat margarine may not work or taste the same. So save these treats for special occasions.

Salted vs. Unsalted Butter
Most people prefer the taste of salted butter. But for the best flavour in cooking, use unsalted butter and add small amounts of salt only as needed. Adding the salt yourself gives you more control over flavour. You'll find you don't need much!

Butter, but Better
Cook unsalted butter until it foams, strain away the milk solids, and you have drawn (or clarified) butter. It has a much higher smoke point than regular butter, making it good for pan-frying. Traditional ghee is a lot like drawn butter, but cooked a little longer. It's popular in Indian cuisine.

ps- this is only for information, always consult you physician before having any particular food/ medication/exercise/other remedies.

ps- those interested in recipes are free to view my blog-

http://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/

for info about knee replacement, you can view my blog-

http://Knee replacement-stick club.blogspot.com/

for crochet designs

http://My Crochet Creations.blogspot.com

Top healthy cooking tips & eating habits

If you want to slim down by year end or simply want to get healthy, you don't have to adopt a stringent lifestyle or stay away from your favourite dessert.

Instead, you just have to modify your basic recipes and change your cooking methods. A Dr. shares some easy ways to cut calories and burn fat, with these simple cooking techniques.

Healthy cooking tip # 1:
Keep your fats to a minimum. Dr. says, 'you don't have to completely stay away from fats, just keep it to a minimum. Also, choose unrefined natural fats like nuts, seeds, fish soy, olives and avocados, because they contain omega-3 fatty acids, which are very beneficial for a healthy body.

Healthy cooking tip # 2:
Use skimmed milk or cow's milk instead of full fat milk. If you want to indulge in some curd or yoghurt, choose those made from skimmed milk.
Healthy cooking tip # 3:
Include more stir-fry recipes in your diet: Stir-fried vegetables cook quickly and retain their crunch (and associated nutrients). Saute or stir-fry without oil in a good non-stick skillet or wok. Simply heat your skillet before adding the food. You may need to add a tablespoon or more of water or broth to prevent sticking and stir often. Covering the pan will also help the vegetables cook faster.

Healthy cooking tip # 4:
Modify your cooking style to baking, braising, broiling and grilling, poaching, roasting, sauteing, steaming and stir-frying. All these methods are very healthy and safe.

Healthy cooking tip # 5:
Modify or eliminate recipes that include butter or those that need you to deep fry or saute the ingredients in animal fat, because this can cause great harm to your health.

Healthy cooking tip # 6:
Use non-stick cooking pans, as you don't have to use a lot of oil and butter to cook a meal.

Healthy cooking tip # 7:
Want to cut down on the amount of fat you use while cooking, then using cooking spray (a spray form of an oil as a lubricant, lecithin as an emulsifier) or apply a small amount of oil with a pastry brush.

Healthy cooking tip # 8:
Instead of randomly adding salt to your food, first taste your food. Add a splash of olive oil, vinegar or lemon juice close to the end of cooking time or to cooked vegetables - it can enhance flavours in the same way as salt does.

Healthy cooking tip # 9:
Instead of using oil, trying cooking in liquids like stock, wine, lemon juice, vinegar or just water. All these variants are very healthy and you will reduce your oil consumption.

Healthy cooking tip # 10:
Eat more fish, which is high in protein, low in fats and loaded with essential omega-3 fatty acids.

Healthy cooking tip # 11:
Use low-fat yoghurt, low-fat milk, evaporated skim milk or cornstarch instead of using cream in sauces or soups.

Healthy cooking tip # 12:
To minimise your intake of salt, choose fresh or frozen vegetables, since canned and pickled vegetables tend to be packed in salt, which can led to high blood pressure.
Healthy cooking tip # 13: 

Remove chicken skin and trim the fat from meat, to cut calories and be healthy.

Healthy cooking tip # 14:
If you want to brown, your veggies then put them in a hot pan and spray them with oil. This reduces the amount of oil that vegetables absorb during cooking. Another option is to first cook in the microwave, then grill them for a minute or two.

Healthy cooking tip # 15: 

Reduce your use of soy sauce, tomato sauce and processed sauces and condiments, for dressing, because they contain high levels of salt.

Healthy cooking tip # 16:
Replace oil or margarine while baking: Mashed or pureed tofu can replace oil when baking. Flax meal can also be used to replace all or some of the oil in a recipe. The substitution ratio is three parts flax seed meal for every part oil or fat you are replacing. For example, for 15 mL (1 Tbsp) of fat to be replaced, use 45 mL (3 Tbsp) of flax seed meal. Baked goods with flax as a fat replacer tend to brown more quickly than regular recipes. Apple sauce may be used in cakes, cookies, and other sweet baked goods to replace oil or margarine.

Healthy cooking tip # 17:
To minimise your salt intake, avoid salt-laden processed foods like flavoured instant pasta or noodles, canned or dehydrated soup mixes, chips and salted nuts.

Healthy cooking tip # 18:
To minimise the loss of water-soluble vitamins, scrub vegetables rather than peel them, as many nutrients are found close to the skin. Microwave or steam vegetables instead of boiling them. If you like to boil vegetables, use a small amount of water and do not over boil them.

Healthy cooking tip # 19:
Use of herbs and spices: Culinary herbs are leafy plants that add flavour and colour to all types of meals. They are also rich in health-protective phyto-oestrogens. In many cases, herbs and spices can replace the flavour of salt and oil.

Healthy cooking tip # 20:
Herbs are sparingly flavoured, in order to retain the taste, add them to your cooking in the last few minutes.

Tip # 21
Avoid using food colours, ajinomoto while cooking, as these are carcinogens  that means can cause cancer.

Tip # 22
Always wash thoroughly, then cut vegetables just before you start cooking, as they won't lose their nutrients.

Tip # 23
When you use curry leaves, which are rich source of Vitamin E, good for skin & hair, make sure that you chop them fine, fry in minimum oil, as they're fat soluble Vitamins, so vitamins get absorbed & people won't discard them, than when used whole for seasoning.

Tip # 24
Adding baking soda while frying, makes you lose Vitamin B from the food, better to use some corn flour or rice flour or semolina to make foods crispier.

ps- this is only for information, always consult you physician before having any particular food/ medication/exercise/other remedies.

ps- those interested in recipes are free to view my blog-

http://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/

for info about knee replacement, you can view my blog-

http://Knee replacement-stick club.blogspot.com/

for crochet designs

http://My Crochet Creations.blogspot.com/

Microwaving Veggies are safe

Despite what you might read on the Internet, microwaving your food does not "kill" nutrients. In fact, it can make certain nutrients more available to your body . In terms of the impact on your food's nutrients, microwaving is the equivalent of sautéing or heating up in a pan (just a lot more convenient). Research on this topic shows that whenever you cook greens (broccoli, spinach, etc), some of the B vitamins and other water-soluble vitamins are lost. The amount you lose depends on the duration and rigor in which the food is cooked-steaming broccoli in the microwave for 90 seconds is a lot different than nuking it for five minutes. Another example: Sautéing green beans in a pan allows for much better vitamin retention than if you were to boil them. Boiling leaches the most nutritients out of your food, so with the exception of potatoes, try to avoid boiling your vegetables.