Healthy eating can sometimes be quite challenging. That’s why we’re going to tell you 9 ingenious tricks that will help you cook healthier even in stressful everyday life.
In everyday life, food usually has to be eaten quickly. That’s why some of us often find it difficult to cook healthily. Convenience usually prevails: we quickly pop a ready-made meal in the oven or cook the same pasta dish for the hundredth time because it’s so quick. But this is rarely particularly healthy.
To make sure that healthy cooking works, you need to know which foods are good for you and which you should avoid. We’ll tell you some simple rules that will help you cook healthier right away. We also have three great recipes for you to try.
Healthy cooking: What does that mean?
If you are planning to cook healthier, you should learn a little about the subject beforehand. In order to cook healthily, you need to know what is healthy in the first place.
First of all, just because someone wants to cook healthy doesn’t mean they want to lose weight or go on a “diet”. If you decide to cook healthy, you are doing it to do something good for your body and to provide it with important vitamins, minerals and nutrients. A healthy diet leads to more energy in everyday life and fewer illnesses that can be traced back to a poor diet. So, unlike dieting, healthy cooking should be a permanent condition.
In general, it can be said that when cooking healthy, you should use fresh and unprocessed foods as much as possible. It’s not really witchcraft at all and basically each of us knows roughly which foods are good for us and which are not. Fruit and vegetables, for example, are at the top of the menu, while you should keep your hands off trans fats, sugar and convenience foods in general. And the preparation method is also important.
Healthier cooking in everyday life : 9 simple rules
It’s clear that we can’t all stick to a healthy eating plan 100% of the time. Almost everyone sins from time to time or indulges in the odd unhealthy snack. The key to happiness here is: Everything in moderation. To help you cut back on unhealthy foods as much as possible, here are 9 simple rules to help you do so.
Tip #1: No bagged mixes and convenience foods
The first important rule is to stay away from bagged mixes and ready meals. They can be a real trap. For example, if you prepare a fresh salad and then top it with a ready-made dressing from a bag. Or when you make a healthy vegetable dish and add a sauce from a bag. You may be eating something healthy (vegetables or salad), but you’re ruining every healthy meal with the bag mix. But it’s so easy to do without.
Of course, the same goes for ready-made meals. We are tempted far too quickly to just pop the ready-made lasagna or pizza into the oven. The problem with all these ready-made meals is not only the fat and the many calories. It’s also the many hidden additives, flavor enhancers and sugar. If you find that you have too little time to eat ready-made meals, you should consider preparing your meals in advance.
Tip #2: Prepare meals
This brings us to the next point. For all those who have little time in their daily lives, Meal Prep can be worthwhile. Prepare your meals for the week on Sundays, for example, and store them in the fridge or freeze them. This will save you a lot of time during the week and you will always be able to eat healthy despite the stress.
Tip #3: Healthy supplies
Another tip that will make healthy cooking much easier for you is to shop healthy. We all know the situation of coming home and feeling hungry. Then we often just reach for the packet of crisps, a chocolate bar or make ourselves some noodles.
To avoid such a situation in the first place, you should shop healthily. Because if you don’t have anything unhealthy at home, you can’t eat anything unhealthy either.
White flour products and white rice, for example, don’t contain as many nutrients and don’t fill you up as long as the whole-grain varieties. So switch to these instead.
Healthy provisions are, for example:
- Fresh fruit and vegetables
- Legumes
- Frozen vegetables
- Wholemeal pasta
- Brown rice
- Potatoes
- Oatmeal
- Wholemeal bread
- Natural yogurt
- Nuts
Tip #4: Fruit instead of sweets
And here we come to the next tip. If you are craving something sweet, reach for an apple or a banana instead of a chocolate bar. This will satisfy your cravings. And if you’ve done your shopping properly beforehand, it won’t be difficult because there’s no chocolate bar.
Of course, fruit also contains fructose. But it also contains plenty of fiber and vitamins and keeps you full longer. That’s why it’s healthier than chocolate and the like.
If you like baking, you can also use fruit instead of refined sugar. Dates or bananas, for example, are great for sweetening cakes.
Tip #5: Pay attention to quality
If you want to cook healthily, you should of course pay attention to the quality of the products you buy. This is especially true for fruit, vegetables, meat and fish.
If we buy fruit and vegetables from discounters, we usually cannot tell whether they contain pesticide residues and how many nutrients are in the food. These may have been lost during transport and storage.
If you buy your fruit and vegetables from the farmer around the corner or at least make sure to buy seasonal fruit and vegetables from your region, you definitely have a better chance of getting high-quality products. At least you know where the food comes from and what has happened to it.
Tip #6: Steaming instead of frying
Another popular mistake: many of us fry our food with lots of oil in the pan. Sometimes, of course, you can’t do without sautéing. In that case, we advise you to use oil more consciously and less. A high-quality coated pan also helps to save oil when frying.
However, you can often do without frying. If you want to cook healthily, you can prepare the vegetables in the oven, for example, or – even better – steam them (in their own juice or with a little water). By the way, this also has the advantage that the food is prepared much more gently and vitamins and minerals are better retained, which can be lost during cooking.
Tip #7: Use good fats
While we are on the subject of fat, it should also be said that fat is not necessarily a bad thing. There are indeed healthy fats. Our body even needs them, as they are an important source of energy and are necessary for the absorption of some nutrients.
However, you should be able to distinguish which fats are good and which are rather unhealthy. Foods with so-called trans fatty acids should be completely removed from your diet, such as crisps, chips and ready meals. Saturated fatty acids, which are found in sausage, some dairy products and many baked goods, should also be consumed in moderation. They can have a negative effect on your blood lipid levels.
If you want to cook healthily, then from now on you should rather reach for unsaturated fatty acids. These can be found in fatty fish, avocados or nuts, for example.
Tip #8: Less salt
Too much salt is also not a good idea if you want to cook healthily. For one thing, too much consumption can lead to kidney stress in the long run. For another, salt is also said to affect our blood pressure. And that in turn can lead to cardiovascular diseases.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we have to cut salt out of our diet completely, but just use it more consciously. The World Health Organization recommends a maximum of 5 grams per day.
The problem with salt is that you get used to the taste incredibly quickly. If you have always salted your food a lot, it is difficult to break this habit. Conversely, this also means that if you cut back on salt consumption in the long term, your tongue will eventually become much more sensitive to the taste again.
One tip for reducing salt is to first season your food with other spices, such as herbs, garlic or chilli. This will give your food the necessary pep without any salt. Finally, you can refine it with a little salt.
Tip #9: Vegetables as a main meal
If we want to cook healthier, we should quickly say goodbye to the idea of using vegetables or salads only as a side dish. From now on, let’s make vegetables our main dish. We present you 3 simple and healthy recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, which can be quickly conjured up even in hectic everyday life.
Healthy cooking in everyday life: Delicious recipes
As you can see from the tips, it’s not that difficult to cook healthy. To make it even easier for you, we have picked out some delicious recipes that you can easily try out.
Recipe #1 : Porridge for breakfast
There are many ways to make breakfast healthy. One of our favorite breakfast recipes is porridge. It fills you up for a long time, is healthy and super quick to prepare.
What you need :
- 1 small cup of oatmeal, tender
- 1 small cup (vegetable) milk
- 1 small cup of water
- optional: some honey to sweeten
How to make it :
Put a small cup of oatmeal in a pot. Add a small cup of milk and a small cup of water. Bring the oatmeal to the boil, stirring briefly, until it becomes a creamy mixture. If you like, you can sweeten the porridge with a little honey or agave syrup. Then top the porridge as desired.
These toppings go well with porridge :
We generally recommend topping your porridge with seasonal fruits. In summer, for example, strawberries, blueberries or raspberries go really well with the creamy porridge. In winter, apples or bananas with a little cinnamon are a great choice. Nuts in the porridge provide a delicious crunch.
Recipe #2 : Stuffed sweet potatoes for lunch
You also have a huge choice of healthy dishes to cook for lunch. One of our favorites, which is really quick and filling, is stuffed sweet potatoes with an avocado and pepper cream. Sweet potatoes contain lots of minerals and vitamins and very little fat.
What you need:
- 2 sweet potatoes
- 1 onion
- 2 avocados
- 1 clove of garlic
- some lime juice
- a little cream cheese
- 1 paprika
- salt and pepper to taste
How to make it :
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Cut the sweet potatoes in half and brush with a little olive oil. Place in the oven for about 45 minutes. Then peel and chop the onion. Place in a pan and fry until translucent. Pit the avocados and put them in a bowl. Peel the garlic and also press it into the bowl. Add the lime juice and cream cheese and mix with a fork until creamy. Then wash the peppers, cut them into very small pieces and add to the avocado cream. Season with a little (!) salt and pepper and other spices to taste.
As soon as the sweet potatoes are cooked, remove from the oven, allow to cool briefly and cut lengthwise. Pour the avocado and pepper cream over them. If you like, you can garnish with fresh parsley. So delicious, so healthy and so easy!
Of course, you can also stuff the sweet potatoes with lots of other healthy ingredients. For example, courgette, champions, beans or sweetcorn go well with them.
Recipe #3 : Couscous salad for dinner
Many people like to eat something light in the evening that doesn’t weigh them down. A snack or a classic salad is often just too boring. We therefore present a really delicious couscous salad with tomatoes, cucumber, feta and pine nuts.
What you need :
- 200 g couscous
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1/2 spring onion
- 1 pepper
- 1/2 cucumber
- A handful of cherry tomatoes
- Tomato paste
- 50 g pine nuts
- 100 g feta
This is how it works :
Put the couscous in a pot with about 150 ml boiling water and a little salt, stir once and then leave to swell for 10 minutes with the lid closed. Cut the garlic, spring onion, pepper, cucumber and tomatoes into small cubes. Once the couscous is ready, mix with about 1 tbsp tomato paste and then stir in the vegetables. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Finally, toast the pine nuts in a pan without oil and add to the salad together with the feta. Stir everything, let it stand for 20 minutes and enjoy!
Couscous salad also has the great advantage that you can change the vegetables as you like. It’s also great for Meal Prep as the couscous keeps for a few days in the fridge.
