Healthy Cooking – Frying
When you think about healthy cooking frying is not usually the first method that comes to mind.
Frying involves cooking your food in some kind of fat or oil. When you fry foods, it usually adds a large amount of fat or oil to your food as the fat is absorbed by the food as it cooks.
While fat is something that your body needs, it doesn’t need it in such high amounts.
If you are trying to lose weight, you need to be especially careful about your fat consumption. Fat is very high in calories and reducing your fat intake is an easy way to reduce your overall calorie count.
Deep Frying
One of the easiest ways to lower the fat content of your food and boost your heart health is to avoid deep frying foods.
Deep frying adds a marvelous texture and flavour to your food. Unfortunately, the oil you’re adding to your food by deep frying will sneak in many extra calories you don’t need if you’re working toward healthier eating.
In addition, most oils used for deep frying are not the healthiest kind for your heart.
Pan Frying
You can sauté your food in a pan as an alternative. Pan frying is healthier than deep frying as it uses less fat.
For this type of frying, you can usually use one or two tablespoons of oil as opposed to a quart of it.
You can also use the most heart healthy oils with pan frying. You’ll want to use oils that are monounsaturated. These oils can actually help you to lower your levels of bad LDL cholesterol.
Extra virgin olive oil is generally the best choice for heart health. One study from 2011 showed that using olive oil can even reduce the risk of stroke in the elderly.
Pan frying would seem to be a better choice than deep frying for many reasons. There are a lot of options, though, when it comes to cooking.
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