Tips on the Art of Cooking

Cooking time and temperature greatly determine the nutritional value of the end product of your recipe. Vitamin c for example, once heated for a temperature beyond a particular point breaks down the nutrients in it.

Cooking method in general can be divided into two categories

• Dry heat cooking- cooking food in an Oven/ flame without adding water. This process involves roasting, sautéing and baking.
• Moist heat cooking- covered cooking or cooking involved liquid content. This process involves boiling and steaming.

Stir frying or sautéing helps to retain characteristic crunchiness and nutrients to a great extent. This process involves sautéing of food quickly on a hot pan using small amount of oil.

Sautéing makes food appetizing and retain its flavours. The right apparatus for a perfect sauté is a pan that has a dense, heavy bottom which spreads the heat evenly without any hot spots. While cooking a Mediterranean style dish, olive oil shall be put to use, but if you are prepare an Asian dish, sesame oil might be the better choice

Grilling adds a beautiful charring or browning flavour to your dish. A grill generally exposes your food directly to flame whereas Broiling is done in an oven with heat coming from the top. For the smoky flavour, the best method would be barbecuing which is not possible in a gas grille or boiler oven.

High temperature grilling possesses health risk due to presence of carcinogenic compounds. This can be eliminated by marinating the meat well in advance and turning it during heating.

Roasting is a process of browning the surface of the individual contents of a recipe without compromising the cooking of its inside. The added value of this method of cooking is to obtain golden and crunchy meat skin and the juice that concentrates inside the skin. This method is widely used for cooking meat. Though it destroys vitamins it retains minerals in the food.

Deep fry involves food immersed in hot oil. This delivers a crispy texture at its exterior and soft, moist interior. The choice of oil should have a very high smoke point, like avocado, refined sun flower oil and peanut oil.

Boiling is a versatile style of cooking where as poaching refers to slowly cook food by simmering in hot liquids. The temperature of the stove should be moderate as high temperatures can kill the nutrients in the liquids. Water is first boiled and food, lentils, vegetables are dropped in it and boiled in reduced heat and covered by a lid to maintain pressure and temperature for quickening the process of boiling.

Steaming is the process of cooking the food in a steamer. The food does not touch the boiling liquid and the lid put over the pot helps to cook food in steam and moisture in the vessel. This is a great option to cook vegetables and sprouts without loss or very little loss of minerals, vitamins, minerals and nutrients.

The way we cook our food tells a lot about who we are and what are eating habits. Food is inextricably linked to occasions and memories. So choose your cooking methods wisely to bring the best to your family.

You should look into the great possibilities of the education and training from culinary art schools.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gino_Orlandi

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Seven Tips For A Long And Healthy Life

As good as modern medical technology is, it can never save you from the problems caused by a life style that is unhealthy. Instead of getting a modern medical fix for every problem, it is far better to live in such a way that you will hardly ever fall ill.

An ounce of prevention is certainly better than a pound of cure. Here are seven tips on how to live a long and healthy life. In addition, the same life style that helps you to avoid illness also helps you to lose weight.

1. Get Enough Exercise

In the past people had to use their physical bodies in the course of their normal work. But today someone may get up, go to work in a car, then sit down, get up to go home in the car and when arriving at home, sit down again for the rest of the day. In such a life there is no physical labor. This physical inactivity is one of the main reasons for a host of diseases. Sport, running. walking and other things must be added to our life if our normal work does not require us to exert ourselves physically. I

2. Go to sleep when you feel sleepy

This may sound simple, but many people stay up late even when their body is telling them that it is time to sleep. Yoga and Ayurvedic doctors also say that it is better to sleep in the night and be active during the day. However, people such as students will take coffee and stimulants to study late into the night. Others develop the habit of remaining active at night and sleeping during the day. While we can do this, it eventually takes a toll on health. Alternative health doctors say that this kind of unnatural living is one of the contributing factors in the causation of cancer and other diseases

3. Eat when you feel hungry

This is also a simple idea, but once again we often go against the messages of the body. If you eat out of habit or due to social pressure at certain time of the day, even when you have no real appetite, then you will not digest your food properly. Acidity and indigestion begin, and this contributes to the likelihood of other more complex diseases taking root. Having an appetite is actually a sign of good health, but if you have no appetite you should wait a bit and then eat. (If you have no appetite even after awaiting a reasonable amount of time, then you should consult a doctor because something is wrong.)

4.Fast on a Regular, Systematic Basis

If you would ask any person to work 365 days per year without any rest, they would complain and say that they must have some rest or else they will break down. But we have never bothered to ask or to think about our digestive organs which we compel to work day after day without a rest. They cannot protest the way a person would to his boss, but they do give us signals that they cannot work non-stop. When we ignore those signals and still compel them to work, those organs break down. That is why periodic fasting is necessary. Refrain from eating for one complete day. This gives a rest to your digestive organs and also helps in the elimination of wastes from your body. Regular fasting allows a person to gain extra time for intellectual or spiritual pursuits. Fasting is not for hermits in a cave, but is a sensible practice that anyone can practice.

5. Wash with cool water before going to bed

As mentioned above, proper sleep is essential for the maintenance of health. If you wash your important motor and sensory organs (hands, arms, eyes, legs, mouth, genitals) before sleep using cool water, this will relax you and prepare you for deep sleep.

6. Perform meditation on a regular basis

Your body is linked to your mind. Many of the diseases of this era are psychosomatic. Stress and anxiety take their toll on our physical health. Meditation is a mental exercise which, among other things, allows you to detach yourself from the worries of life. Learn a simple technique and do it regularly.

7. Get up early every day

Once again the old proverb, “Early to bed, early to rise makes a person healthy, wealthy and wise.” I don’t know if it will make you wealthy, but it will certainly make you healthy. Your body needs just enough sleep, not too much and not too little.

Follow these tips and you can’t go wrong.

Copied with permission from: http://plrplr.com/79753/seven-tips-for-a-long-and-healthy-life/

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