Easy healthy tips


Preparing nutritious meals is more important than ever but it can sometimes seem like a rather tricky and time-consuming task. However, it doesn’t have to be. These easy food prep and cooking hacks, brought to you by loveFOOD’s nutritionist Angela Dowden, will take the hard work out of eating healthily.



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Keep potatoes in big chunks

The smaller the pieces of potato, the more surface area there is for water-soluble nutrients like vitamin C and riboflavin (vitamin B2) to leach from when potatoes are boiled. Keep roast potatoes chunky too, as smaller pieces similarly have more total surface area to absorb fat through during cooking.



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Marinate meat before barbecuing



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Blot with paper towel

Use sheets of paper towel to soak up excess fat from the top of takeaway pizzas, and to serve home-cooked fried foods like chicken and French fries on too. Each teaspoon of oil that ends up soaked into the paper is around 38 calories you aren’t going to consume yourself.



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Consider getting a ceramic knife

Not only brilliant for chopping veg, a ceramic knife could have a nutritional advantage too. The reason? Unlike stainless steel, ceramic doesn’t contain iron and traces of copper that can speed up the browning rate when you cut into produce such as avocados and lettuce. Known as enzymic browning, this oxidation reaction shows that valuable micronutrients – that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties – are being destroyed. So switch to a ceramic knife to slow down the discoloration.



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Steam or microwave broccoli

Steaming is known to leach fewer nutrients from greens and is a particularly good way to cook broccoli, which can lose valuable glucosinolates – potential anti-cancer compounds – when boiling or frying. Microwaving with a small amount of water essentially steams food from the inside out, making it an excellent cooking method for this vegetable.



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Add white beans to your smoothie

Blander-tasting beans like cannellini or butter beans are perfect in a smoothie, as they add protein and make it more filling. Try whizzing a small handful of the beans along with a banana and berries to make an energizing breakfast drink.

Discover more amazing smoothie ideas here



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Swap fat for mashed banana in muffins

To reduce saturated fat in your favorite muffin recipe, the American Heart Association suggests using three ripe, very well-mashed bananas, instead of half a cup of butter.



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Spread sarnies with avocado

Butter on a sandwich can easily provide a quarter of your daily recommended limit of saturated fat. Swap it for a thin spread of puréed avocado instead and much of that saturated fat will be replaced with the healthier unsaturated kind that is heart-healthy. A spread of avocado goes particularly well with a tuna or chicken salad filling.



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Swap heavy cream for hummus in tomato pasta sauce

It might sound unlikely, but try this swap for yourself and we guarantee you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Hummus in place of cream in a tomato pasta sauce, or the Italian-American specialty vodka sauce, works brilliantly. And as well as tasting delicious, it also cuts levels of saturated fat and calories substantially.



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Big up basil; max out mint

To get more goodness from herbs, promote them from garnish to featured green – for example in this mozzarella and prosciutto salad. Gram for gram, mint has 3.5 times more iron than beef; and basil and chives both have more folate than broccoli. But to get the goodness, they need to be eaten in larger amounts than is usually the case.



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Low-fat Chinese

Fancy Chinese takeout? Cut down on fat, salt and sugar by ordering steamed vegetables with shrimp (plain rice or noodles optional). Then add your own healthier dressing made from sesame oil, lime, reduced-salt soy sauce, plus garlic, ginger and chili flakes to taste.



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Season with nutritional yeast

The savory, slightly cheesy flavor of this vitamin-packed powdered yeast means it can substitute salt in a variety of dishes, including pasta, vegetables and salads. Try it sprinkled on popcorn, added to scrambled eggs or to stuffing.



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Add cauliflower to your mash

Swap half of the potatoes for cauliflower next time you make mashed spuds – you’ll not only be reducing carbs and calories, but also upping levels of vitamin C and folate.



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Switch out some ground beef for lentils

If your recipe requires 1lb (around 500g) of ground beef, try using ¾lb instead and substituting the final part with just over a ¼ cup of cooked lentils. You’ll be switching some animal protein for healthier plant protein, having more fiber and reducing calories too.



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Stock up on frozen veg

Most of us know this, but it’s worth a reminder – frozen vegetables often have as many or even more nutrients than the fresh produce in the grocery store, so it’s absolutely fine to use them for fast and healthy everyday meals. Freezer cabinet veggies get blanched and flash frozen within hours after harvest, whereas fresh produce is often hanging around longer, leaving more time for vitamins to be depleted.

Here are some more surprisingly brilliant frozen foods every freezer should have



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Switch to lower sodium salt

When you can’t avoid adding salt in cooking, have a potassium-substituted version (potassium chloride) in your cupboard rather than straight sodium chloride. Both taste like regular table salt but potassium helps keep blood pressure healthy and normal, whereas excess sodium raises blood pressure. Lo Salt has 66% less sodium than table salt, while Morton Lite has 50% less.



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Make ‘fried’ chicken in the oven



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Keep potatoes out of the fridge

Don’t store raw potatoes in the fridge if you intend to cook them at high temperatures, such as by roasting or frying. This is because the process causes ‘cold sweetening’ – a natural sugar level rise in the spuds – which in turn increases levels of acrylamide when the potatoes get brown and crispy. Acrylamide has been classified as a ‘probable human carcinogen’ by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.



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Turn down the toaster setting

This is another way to ensure your acrylamide intake doesn’t get too out of hand. The browner the toast, the more acrylamide it contains – the same is the case for oven fries and any breaded or battered items. Cook them to pale golden but not deeper.



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Try pressure cooking

Pressure cookers start from around $22 (£18) and can handle putting a full meal on the table in less than 30 minutes (including cooking meat from frozen, which slow cookers can’t do). Because everything steams in next to no time, you get maximum retention of vitamins. 

Want to make more quick dinners? Check out these 30 easy meals ready in under 30 minutes



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Buy parboiled white rice

Brown rice is healthier but if your recipe works best with white, always buy the easy-cook rice (parboiled) version, which has been pre-steamed in the husk. The process helps the grains to stay separate and fluffy when cooked at home, but also drives B vitamins and protein from the bran into the starchy interior, so that it is more nutritious even after the bran has been removed.



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Leave garlic before cooking

To maximize the health benefits, you should allow garlic to sit for 10 to 15 minutes after prepping it. Chopping releases an enzyme that creates the formation of several sulfur compounds that might have beneficial effects on heart health and the immune system. Cooking too soon deactivates the enzyme before it has had a chance to work.



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Choose deeper green leaves

When it comes to salad leaves, a rule of thumb is the greener the better – kale, spinach, arugula and romaine all have more vitamin A, vitamin C and folate than butterhead and anemic iceberg lettuce.

Now try these super low-cal and quick desserts



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Eat pasta the day after cooking

Chilling pasta causes ‘resistant starch’ to form, and reheating increases this level even more. The great thing about resistant starch is that it can’t be broken down by normal digestion – instead it’s fermented by friendly bowel bacteria. The result is a smaller blood glucose peak and lower absorption of calories – reducing diabetes and obesity risks.  

Now discover why bananas are radioactive and other amazing food facts



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