Cooking Healthy Guilt Free Meals

For the longest time, the news has been about healthy eating and overall health brought to the forefront, where it should be. That’s because there are numerous health conditions, including autoimmune diseases, cancer, and others on the rise at alarming rates. Even children have been diagnosed with hypertension, something that was unheard of in the past and juvenile diabetes is worrying the medical community. This could all be attributed to poor lifestyle choices, starting with what goes on in the kitchen.

One of the most important things anyone should do, and especially a parent, is to cook at home. Forget about restaurants and fast food chains, as well as the dangerous deli meats. No one is suggesting that eating out is something to never do — it’s just something that should be done infrequently, as a special treat. However, as for the most part, cooking should be a normal part of everyday living. This may seem like a challenge to many because everyone is so busy with work, school, after school activities, and so on. The responsibilities are often too great and overwhelming, so most of us sacrifice what is the most important part of life — food.

There are many ways to overcome what seems like an insurmountable challenge. For example, cooking at home can begin with the easiest way to cook — slow cooker meals. Much of the preparation can be done at night, so in the morning, all one needs to do is add the ingredients directly to the slow cooker and turn it on. By the time everyone arrives home from their busy day, they have a nutritious and tasty home-cooked meal. The slow cooker is a lifesaver that delivers incredible food without any compromise with regards to taste. You can cook virtually anything in a slow cooker, and with all the delicious recipes widely available online, there is no excuse not to plug in this miracle small appliance and let it do its magic.

Having said that, it is imperative to choose wholesome ingredients. More often than not, we are all guilty of choosing already prepared ingredients, but many of these can be made with ease in advance and refrigerated or frozen for use at a later date. Consumers must realize that there are often questionable ingredients in all types of store-bought sauces, dressings, and so on. It would be best to make your own marinara sauce and it would only take a maximum of about one hour to prepare and cook. You can make plenty, and store the rest in containers in your freezer. Not only does it save money, it’s good for your health, and you know exactly what ingredients were used.

Make a huge pot of meat sauce and, as soon as it cools down, store it in containers according to the servings required at any given meal. This way, you can choose the exact type of meat that goes into your sauce, as well as organic tomato, and herbs and spices. It’s that simple to feed your family delicious meals at the snap of a finger.

Guilt free cooking is easy. Take a couple of days out of the month and cook up a storm of good food that your family can enjoy. The same is true of sweet treats. Commercial sweets are loaded with high-fructose corn syrup and many other difficult-to-pronounce ingredients. Cookies are generally easy to prepare and bake. While it is a lot easier to pick up a product from a grocery store shelf than it is to take 20 minutes out of your day to make your own, you can’t compare the quality and the wholesome ingredients in them as opposed to the unknown chemicals used by manufacturers. Making cakes may be time-consuming, but there are quick and easy recipes to whip some up in a jiffy.

Knowing what you eat can change your life and that of your family’s. You can even lose weight when cooking and baking sweet treats at home. Avoiding the questionable ingredients food manufacturers use will also reduce your salt and sugar intake since there is so much hidden sodium and sugars in prepared foods. Click here to go guilt free with cooking and making sweet treats.