Healthy Cooking Tips

Maintaining an active, healthy lifestyle is important for the health of your heart.

• Use olive oil for sautéing and canola oil for stir-frying. Olive oil has a low smoke point, and will smoke with the high heat required for stir-frying.
• Try low-sodium chicken broth for sautéing or stir-frying, instead of oil. Add low-sodium chicken broth to mashed potatoes for extra flavor, rather than adding butter or cream.
• You can cook chicken or turkey with the skin on for flavor and convenience, but remove the skin before eating, as chicken and turkey skin are loaded with fat. Poultry does not absorb the fat from the skin as it cooks, so you can avoid the extra fat by removing the skin.
• Refrigerate homemade soups and remove hardened fat from the top before reheating or freezing for future use.
• Use avocados, guacamole and olives as condiments to add flavor to foods, rather than using high-fat dressings, sauces and toppings. For example, you could use diced avocados or guacamole on a burrito, instead of all or part of the cheese or sour cream.
• Add oats to meat loaf instead of breadcrumbs.
• Use 2 egg whites instead of 1 whole egg, or use egg substitute.
• Use low-fat/non-fat greek yogurt or low-fat/non-fat sour cream as a substitute for regular sour cream.
• Use a rack in the pan when oven-roasting, to allow fat to drip from the meats.
• Whole-wheat flour can be substituted for white flour in any recipe.
• Omega-3 fatty acids have been found to reduce blood pressure, improve insulin resistance, reduce the tendency of the blood to clot, and reduce the risk of abnormal heart rhythms. These fatty acids are found in fish like salmon and tuna, and in plant sources including flax, avocado, and walnuts, among others.
• Drain and rinse canned vegetables in fresh water before cooking. Even better, use no-salt-added canned vegetables. The best way, however, is to use frozen vegetables when fresh are not available or are out of the budget.