Why Home Cooking Beats Restaurant Dining

Dining out is, without a doubt, one of life’s great perks, but doing so regularly can lead to not just expense but also bad health. If you’re trying to maintain a toned physique, spending every day at your favourite restaurant isn’t the best way to achieve it. The good news though is that you can recreate some of your favourite dining experiences at home, for a fraction of the cost and calories, and still enjoy the restaurant feel. Restaurants really aren’t your friends when it comes to a healthy diet. You can make things better by opting to have your dressing on the side or your chicken grilled rather than fried, but the real importance lies in the nutritional value in what you’re eating. There’s no substitution for a home cooked meal, where you can really make healthier choices across the board. And once you get into the habit of cooking at home you’ll want to do it more and more! The kitchen is a place where you can really get into a creative mind-set – the world is your oyster with regards to home cooking, so get to work creating some delicious and healthy meals for you and your family. The first step towards creating a good environment for cooking is to ensure that everything is clean and organised. With a little bit of planning and strategy, you can capture the quality and the aesthetics of a really great restaurant kitchen – all conducive to a healthy cooking environment! You also need to ensure that your kitchen is immaculate in terms of cleanliness so as to keep the kitchen a place you want to cook regularly. This means keeping work surfaces clean and uncluttered, keeping the fridge clean on a daily basis and checking the dates on food so as to avoid wasting too many ingredients.

 

You should have one designated shelf in the fridge for uncooked meats, a drawer for vegetables and a shelf for dairy produce, so that everything remains uncontaminated. After you’ve cooked a meal, you should wipe down the stove top, the worktops and anywhere else you’ve handled the ingredients to remove the risk of bacteria forming. Also, you need to maintain your motivation to eat healthily. Create lists for your week for each day of meals so you know what you’re making when, and create a collage of phrases and photos to maintain your motivation to achieve a healthy body – believe it or not, it does actually work! Organise your kitchen so that you keep all of your unprocessed foods together and away from any processed foods that the rest of your family may be buying. This will limit your temptation to snack on things you shouldn’t be. Keep a large bowl filled with fresh fruits next to the blender so you’ll be motivated to make your morning smoothies and juices. Put your grains and measurable foods in clear jars so that you can see them clearly and will be encouraged to use them in your dishes. You should also keep an accurate inventory of the food you have so you can plan your weekly shop properly. These tips will help you to create a really inviting place to cook and eat, so that you can avoid dashing out for takeaways and last-minute meals at restaurants instead of cooking a family meal. So start cooking today and see your wellbeing improve by the second!

Categories: cooking, Food, Healthy, Healthy Eating, Home, home-cooking, kitchen, restaurant

Five Things To Know If You Want To Dine Out Healthily

We all like dining out in restaurants; whether it is as a way of going out socialising, a chance to celebrate with family and friends or just for the enjoyment of eating good food. Unfortunately, dining out can be the scourge of even the most steadfast diet – this is because it can often seem difficult to make the right choice when you go out to a restaurant, which can lead to you eating a very large meal that is full of far more calories, fat and cholesterol that is good for you. But the fact that we know that eating out is not good for us means it’s possible to take steps to minimise the damage caused. Here are our top five tips to help you stay healthy when you go out for dinner.

 

One – Read the menu very well

Sometimes we have a habit of skipping through the majority of the menu in a restaurant and just choosing something quickly that we know we like. The problem is that the comfort food choices that we make are often not the healthiest for us. So to make up for this it is a much better idea to go through the menu and think about the levels of calories and fat likely to be in the different dishes. There will usually be healthy options available if you look hard enough and these can be the difference between staying on top of your diet and giving up.

 

Two – Ask for help if you need it

The waiter at the restaurant should have an excellent knowledge of the menu, so if you are reading it and having trouble picking the right thing to keep your levels of fat and cholesterol low, it pays to ask the waiter a few questions – they will be more than happy to help. Remember that in many restaurants the chef will be happy to change up the dish if you have certain requests such as making it with less unhealthy products. So make sure if you ask before you eat!

 

Three – Terms to look out for

Not all food is created equal and there are certain dining choices that you can make that are very bad for you, but others than are not remotely as unhealthy. Whilst it obviously isn’t always going to be possible to know all of the ingredients that go into something, but nevertheless there are certain words that are used within the menu that we can use to establish whether it is likely to be good for us. Bad words include au gratin, deep fried, pan fried, crispy and buttery – and these should be avoided, while you should look instead for words like boiled, grilled, baked or steamed.

 

Four – Look for the right oils

There are certain cooking oils that should be avoided, while others that are far more beneficial to us. Olive oil is clearly one of the best oils that can be used in the preparation of your food. Other good choices include corn, sunflower and canola oil. These should be asked for in preference of other oils that are not as unhealthy for you.

 

Five – The bread basket

The bread basket can be a real problem as it may often come around despite the very healthy choices you’ve made from the menu. But even here there are ways to minimise the negative effects of what you’re eating. Instead of choosing white bread, go for a multi-grain, brown or oat bread, which  will generally be much healthier for you. Also remember to choose margarine instead of butter.

Categories: Bread, bread basket, dining, Food, Healthy, menu, nbsp, oils, restaurant

A Guide to Heart-Healthy Restaurant Dining

Everyone likes a nice meal out at a restaurant from time to time, but if you’re watching your weight and trying to maintain a healthy diet it can be tricky knowing what to choose from the menu. Luckily, you don’t have to turn down every invite to dinner just because of your healthy habits. There are ways to keep up the good work where your diet choices are concerned and still have a lovely meal. Here are some ways that you can keep your heart healthy as you dine out. Firstly, consider the restaurant itself. You may want to eat pizza every night of the week, but that won’t make for a healthy heart. So consider your options when choosing a restaurant. Nowadays, restaurants are keen to highlight the calorie content or the fact that some of their dishes are low fat, so check the menu for this information in case it is displayed. Likewise, some restaurants can tell you which dishes are trans fat-free – you can always call ahead to check if you’re worried.

If you arrive at the restaurant hungry, you’re almost certainly going to overindulge and choose something unhealthy. Reduce the risk of this happening by having a light snack before you go out, such as a piece of fruit or a handful of nuts. It will curb your appetite without making you too full, and means that you’ll be more rational when it comes to choosing your meal. Give yourself time to really look over your choices and consider the benefits of each one – for example, does one dish contain more vegetables making it healthier overall?

You can also ask about serving sizes, so that you can avoid overeating.  Don’t be afraid of asking about ingredients, portion sizes and fat content – the information will help you to make a healthier choice. If a starter serves more than one, why not ask someone else at your table if they’d like to share – this will stop you overeating and gorging on the whole thing, but still enables you to enjoy the meal. You can always split a large meal with your friends or guests as well – many restaurants serve platters designed to share, so why not opt for this instead where you get to sample a variety of foods in one go without risking overindulging.

If you look carefully at how the meals have been prepared, you may be able to find a healthier meal that won’t be so bad for your health. Avoid anything fried, as these will typically have more fat and calories than something that has been grilled or steamed. You can ask for a baked potato, for example, instead of chips, or steamed vegetables instead of those caked in fried batter. Opting for a vegetarian meal can often mean that you avoid unhealthy fats, too.

Naturally higher in vegetables and healthy proteins, such as tofu, these make for a heart-healthy choice over fatty pieces of meat which have often been fried.  You can also make substitutions – for example, why not opt for a healthy bowl of soup for a starter instead of the sugary and calorie-laden dessert? You still get to enjoy a couple of dishes, but in a healthier way and without spoiling your diet. Eating at restaurants doesn’t have to spell the end to your healthy regime, it simply means that you need to put a little more thought into where and what you eat.

Categories: eating, Healthy, heart, Heart-Healthy, meal, restaurant, Restaurant Dining, restaurants