Holistic Cooking Tips

Holistic Lifestyles

How we prepare our food is as important as what we eat. You can buy the best piece of organic, grass fed steak, but if you char it on the grill, the carcinogens created offset the health benefits. Here are some tips to better cook your food, and what to use to cook it.

1. Check your cookware. Great spring cleaning project! Do you see teflon and non-stick pans? Get rid of those: the coating contains toxins that leech into your food when heated. No thanks. Use cast iron pots, stainless steel, or Le Creuset enamel cookware.

2. Get rid of your microwave and use the stove, oven, or a toaster oven. I’ve seen a lot of information out there confirming the microwave’s safety, saying it doesn’t emit *that much* radiation, doesn’t lessen food’s nutrient value, etc. The fact is, microwaves use radiation and cook your food from the inside out, scrambling the nutrients and denaturing the protein. Plus, if you’re microwaving in plastic, you’ll get a double dose of endocrine-disrupting dioxins. Dioxins are xenoestrogens (chemicals that have estrogenic effects on the body) that cause men to grow boobs (kidding, kind of) and girls to get their periods at ages 8 or 9. Back to microwaves: I am using the precautionary principle here and advise you to do the same. If there is any doubt about the safety of a product, stay away from it. We are already bombarded by so much pollution and so many chemicals; don’t add to your toxic load. I do believe that microwaving destroys nutrients in food. And never use the microwave to heat milk for babies!

3. Don’t cook your food to death at high temperatures. It takes longer, but slow cooking at lower temps is much preferable to help food retain its nutrients. For example, I slow roast salmon at 250 degrees, which takes a bit of time, but it tastes heavenly and is healthier. Invest in a slow cooker! Time saving and healthy food prep. Same with greens and with steaming foods: don’t over-cook.

4. If you grill, don’t char your food! This creates cancer-causing carcinogens. Also, our preference for “well done” is not the most healthful. Cook your food medium rare or even rare. The exception here is chicken & pork. Invest in a meat thermometer. Worried about food poisoning? Buy your meat organic and local. You have much less risk of getting a bug from this type of meat than from factory farmed unhealthy feedlot meat. Gross. Let the meat come to room temperature before cooking–it’ll cook more evenly. Let it rest after it’s done so the juices redistribute and you get moister meat.

5. Eat some raw food every day. This doesn’t require any cooking! Raw foods to avoid: broccoli, kale, cabbage, and other members of brassicae family. They contain constituents that can hurt thyroid function. Eat raw fruits and raw veggies on salad, raw nuts, and raw dairy if you use dairy products.

6. Soak raw nuts and grains for easier digestability. Soak nuts in water and sea salt overnight, then dry out in 150 degree oven. Soak grains in water only.

7. Don’t use canola for pan frying/sauteing. Or anything, for that matter. Use coconut or grapeseed oil for high temp cooking. Olive and sesame for medium temp cooking or as a base for salad dressings/marinades.

8. Speaking of, make your own dressings! The ones you buy at the store almost always have canola or soy oil or other unsavory ingredients.

Here is a Asian Inspired salad dressing that can also double as a marinade for fish:
1 tsp grated ginger
2 cloves garlic, pressed
3 TBS rice vinegar, or lemon juice
3 TBS soy sauce
1 TBS miso paste
Whisk all ingredients together, or put in a jar and shake.