- The inclusion of healthy ingredients
- The exclusion of unhealthy ingredients
- The cooking method
Start with healthy ingredients. The best ingredients are whole fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, healthy oils like olive, walnut, grape seed, and rice bran oils. Nuts, legumes and soy are good protein sources that are low in fat, and grains and cereals should include mostly whole grain ingredients. Meats and poultry recipes should call for lean cuts whenever possible, as well as low-fat dairy products. I prefer recipes that include several healthy ingredients, rather than just one or two good ingredients mixed with lots of sugar, salt, or saturated fats. For example, this wild rice with cranberries and apples recipe has a great balance of whole grains, nuts, and fruit. I'd serve this as a side dish with a lean chicken breast. Pork with cabbage and apples is another example of a recipe with several healthy ingredients.
Leave out stuff that's bad for you. Unhealthy ingredients generally include sugar, processed foods, saturated and trans fat, white refined flour, and products made with refined white flour. Evaluating a recipe for unhealthy ingredients is easy. For example, a recipe that calls for processed foods like luncheon meats, processed cheese-products or large amounts of high-fat products like mayonnaise isn't healthy and should not become a recipe you use very often.
Sometimes evaluating a recipe is more difficult. Spaghetti and meatballs seems like a healthy meal, but a large portion of the meal is pasta made from refined white flour and the meatballs may have a lot of saturated fat in them. On the flip side, the spaghetti sauce itself is very healthy with lots of tomatoes that give us vitamins and lycopene. Garlic, peppers, herbs seasonings and mushrooms are healthy ingredients you might find in a spaghetti recipe.
When you find a recipe that confuses you, just alter the recipe a bit. Make your meatballs from ground turkey meat and use a whole grain pasta, or decrease the serving size and add a big salad on the side.
Check out the cooking methods. Deep-frying is probably the least healthy of the cooking methods, especially if the oil is used more than once. Pan frying might be a little better, but still not so good if you use a lot of oil and batters on your foods that absorb a lot of oil. Sauteing in a bit of olive oil or canola oil is better, and roasting in an oven is better yet. Boiling vegetables will not add any extra calories, but you will loose some of the valuable nutrients when you drain off the cooking water. Microwaving is a great way to cook vegetables because it is quick so not many nutrients are lost.
Here are a couple examples of recipes prepared with different methods. Potatoes are a nice source of vitamin C and fiber if you leave on the skins. A medium sized baked potato only has about 100 calories and is a healthy food when cooked in this manner. A french-fried potato is not so healthy. The fat used to deep-fry the potato is not healthy, and the potato absorbs a lot of oil, so the same size potato that is french fried has many more calories and fat. If you like french fries, try slicing the potato into strips and lightly coat the strips with olive oil. Bake them on a baking sheet until they are tender.
Another example of "good verses bad" cooking methods would be this example with a chicken breast: Baking a chicken breast in the oven with some salsa or chicken broth is a healthy way to prepare the chicken. If you take that same chicken breast, coat it with a batter and deep fry it, that piece of chicken becomes an unhealthy, fattening food.
In short, always look for healthy ingredients. Avoid unhealthy ingredients or find healthier substitutes. Choose recipes that let you bake, roast, microwave or saute your foods.
