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Cooking Healthy Holiday Article
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Healthy Cooking: Where Do I Start?
from: Craig StanfordThe first thing to pop into your mind is probably, “what does he mean by healthy
cooking?” What I have in mind is that healthy cooking involves the preparing of foods that not only recharge and rejuvenate the family, but will also leave them better off than they were before. This can only be accomplished thru the use of organic ingredients.
When I talk about organics, some people think that I’m just talking just about produce. That’s not true; there are now organic versions of many animal products available also.
I advocate switching to organic ingredients for your cooking because most produce is sprayed with pesticides and grown with chemical fertilizers, Animal foods can contain growth hormones and antibiotics.
The hormones can cause premature maturing of children. Also, it’s a fact that bacteria are increasingly becoming resistant to antibiotics. A lot of experts say that antibiotics in our food are partly responsible for this resistance.
Before buying organic ingredients, it’s normal for people to ask one or more of the following questions;
1) How can I replace my whole menu with organic ingredients overnight?
2) Won’t organic ingredients cost me more?
3) How will I know if a product is really organic?
The short answer to question #1 is, “you don’t have to”. I recently read a book by Kevin
Trudeau called,” Natural Cures (they don’t want you to know about)”. In it, Kevin
recommends changing one ingredient of your meals at a time to organic until
eventually all of your cooking is with organic ingredients. I have used this method
myself and found it to be a lot easier than trying to change everything overnight.
Currently, my breakfasts are all organic and my other meals that I cook are 50 to 75%
organic.
The answer to question #2 is that unfortunately, organic ingredients usually will cost
more. The number of people that buy organic products has increased, but the numbers
haven’t increased enough to cause economies of scale in the production and sale of
of organic ingredients.
Even though organic ingredients cost more, there are ways to bring these costs down.
One way is to shop at a farmer’s market. Almost every town has a seasonal farmer’s
market. Some big cities even have a year round farmer’s market. Prices are lower
because you are buying directly from the farmer. Usually, you can only buy fruits,
vegetables, spices and eggs at these markets, but you should be able to beat the non-
organic prices in the supermarkets.
Another way to get your costs down is to shop at discount chains because many of them now have organic departments. An example of this would be Wal-Mart.
Another sure way to cut costs of your healthy cooking is to scratch cook more often. A good example is soup. Canned soup in the store usually has a lot of salt and other non-
organic ingredients. Don’t buy the package of chicken thighs. Buy an organic bird and cut it up yourself. Don’t buy the salad in the bag. Buy your own organic vegetables and make your own salad or steam them for any dishes that call for vegetables to be cooked.
Steaming them will leave in more of the vitamins and minerals than high heat cooking.
Remember, every time someone touches your food, it will cost more.
The answer to question #3 is simple. To know if an ingredient you’re looking at is organic look for the label that says, “ USDA organic “.This means that the food has been certified by the USDA as being organic in origin.
This article has been meant to show you the logical starting point in your quest to provide healthy cooking for yourself and your family. In follow up articles I shall talk about such things as more reasons why you should buy organic ingredients and how to get refined sugar out of your cooking.
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