Tips for Cooking to Lose Weight

Sometimes losing weight is all about food preparation. You can cut hundreds of calories from your daily diet by just making a few practical changes.

First off, roast your vegetables. The process makes the vegetables taste sweeter. You can puree them or serve cold roasted vegetables with salads. You can also mash them and use them as a base for soups and salads. Roasted vegetables can also be sliced very thinly and used as snacks.  You can also puree garlic and roast it and then mush it up with water to use as a delicious base for cooking meat.

Instead of high sodium additives like salt use spices to flavor your food instead. Lower calorie foods taste better if you are liberal with the spices.  You can amplify the flavor of the spices by frying them light in a heavy frying pan first. You can also make your own herb infused vinegars by steeping the fresh herbs in vinegar. Chilis, peppers, turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, curry, rosemary, thyme and lemon pepper are just a few of the spices that are good to have on hand when you are cooking.

Do not be afraid to substitute fats, butters and oils with pureed fruits like dried prunes. This allows you retain the moisture level in the baked goods without sacrificing the flavor. You can use applesauce or pureed pears for white cakes and pureed plums, prunes or sweet potato in chocolate cakes.

Instead of oils try replacing butters and oils with fresh fruit juices. For instance you can use orange juice on chicken, fish and other white meats.   You can also reconstitute dried fruits in wine and then make a savory broth by reducing the broth.

A healthy low calorie way to make a broth for fish is to broil it in milk and then add a few sauces.  You can then serve this over rice to make a delicious meal.

If you use a wire rack the juices can drip down into the pan. An electric grill like a George Foreman Grill that cooks food on a slant so the oil runs off into a train can come in handy as well.

If you feel like you must use oil, use cooking spray. You can buy a commercial spray like Pam or you can buy a pressurized canister that you put your own healthy oils in. If you need more moisture while cooking then you can always use a bit of broth to help the vegetables cook.