How to Eat Heart Smart

Tweak your cooking with a few steps and you will reduce your cholesterol, salt and sugar intake.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Olive Oil
• Herbs
• Whole grains
• quinoa
• legumes
• roasted peppers
• spinach
• balsamic vinegar
• non-dairy mayonnaise

1. 
    
   Grow herbs in your kitchen.

   Spice things up.
   Do you like to cook with mint, basil, thyme, rosemary, or garlic? Grow some herbs in your kitchen and cut some off to throw in when you are cooking. These herbs will reduce fat and bring more flavor in your sauces or dressings.

2. Bake, don't fry.
   Try to cut back on frying and use less oil. If you bake something use vegetarian chicken broth and some olive oil or grape seed oil. Cook cut up yams/sweet potatoes on a cookie sheet with olive oil, garlic and fresh herbs.

3. Skip using salt.
   You get alot of salt from canned foods, cheese and others. To make things taste tangy add citrus, balsamic vinegar, wine, and vegetarian chicken broth. (Add one tablespoon vegetarian chicken broth to 1 Cup of water.)

4. 
    

   Add some oil.
   Use more Extra Virgin Olive Oil instead of butter. When baking use maple syrup. Cooking vegetables with oil is better then cooking them without. The oil helps the vegetable absorb vitamins.

5. 
    

   Use whole grains.
   Besides brown rice and whole wheat, try using bulgur, barley and oats - very nutrient rich. These add chromium, B vitamins, and folic acid.

6. 
    

   Keep your food colorful.
   Put fruits like oranges and grapefuit in your salad. Cook up cut up peppers, zucchini, and carrots on a baking pan with live oil and herbs. Cook at 350 for 20 minutes and top on your salad. This helps with chlorestrol and contains lots of antioxidants.

7. 
    

   Use different spreads.
   Replace your calorie laden mayonnaise with vegenaise, and egg free spreads like tapenade, roasted peppers, or sauteed greens like spinach, arugula, collards, and seaweed.

8. 
    

   Eat less red meat.
   Eat grains like quinoa, legumes and tofu (lots of protein). Have meat be a garnish.

Tips & Warnings

• Copyright Zahzel Rose.

Resources

• http://www.google.com/addurl/

[gputscher]

on 10/27/2009 Great article on How to Eat Heart Smart. Thanks for sharing. 5*

[kristara]

on 6/7/2009 Great healthy eating info!