How To Use Less Cooking Oil For A Healthy Life?

The fact that cooking oil is 100% pure fat is well known

Fats are necessary ingredients of our intake of foods. However, excess fats give rise to weight gain which many people want to get rid of. Since many of us have never heard about the harmful effects of excessive oil to health, we seem to eat too much vegetable oils. Besides, we consume it almost every day in our lives, and it is quite difficult to live without it.

Excessive consumption of vegetable oils results in structural changes within our body fat stores and our cell membranes. At the same token, health and diet conscious people shouldn’t get rid of fats fully. Therefore, we have to eat oils at least the minimum amount required to maintain a healthy diet.

Since healthy fats, such as fatty acids and omega-3s, are crucial for health, we need good oils for a healthy cognitive function. But if you are not careful, cooking with too much oil can lead to a lot of additional calories. If you want to keep calorie intake down or at a certain level, here are some recommendations on how to cook with less cooking oil.

Stick To Recipe Amounts

If you are following a healthy recipe with nutritional information, you should stick to the measurements provided in the recipe. You may easily add too much cooking oil if you don’t use measuring cups. You may not realise how many tablespoons you are applying if you do not use measuring spoons.

Use A Nonstick Pan

Some meats and vegetables are easier to cook without using too much oil provided that you have a good nonstick pan. All you need to do is make sure you don’t heat your pan more than 500 degrees Fahrenheit / 260 Celsius to prevent the release of toxic fumes from the nonstick coating.

Spray It On

Just to provide a finishing touch of vegetable oil to dishes, use an oil mister instead of pouring from a heavy-handed oil bottle.

Steam Vegetables

Some vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, and other harder vegetables take some time to cook in the pan. Instead, you can cook the vegetables in boiling water so that they are half cooked. Then add vegetables to your dish to finish cooking faster without needing all that oil. Or just eat the vegetables steamed, that way you don’t need any oil.

Use A Little Water

Some porous vegetables such as eggplant end up soaking in all the liquid in the pan. Rather than continuing to pour vegetable oil to compensate, use a little bit of oil and add water. Furthermore, add spices as needed if you feel that the dish needs more taste. Essential oils are also a great way to add flavor to the dish. Also, you can easily go for an air fryer if you want to use less cooking oil.

Experiment With Oil-Free Condiments

You can try out oil-free condiments to cut the intake of oily foods. For a tasty vegetable oil-free salad dressing, you can blend some vinegar, spices and herbs or essential oils with fruit juice.

Baking Without Butter

You can also use a fruit purée as a healthy and delicious alternative for fats such as oil and butter when baking. Choose instead apple sauce, mashed bananas or puréed dates. Also, nut butter can serve as a substitute. Many people choose coconut oil instead of butter in baking. Here is a good example: Coconut Lime Raspberry Muffins

 

See related posts: Cooking With Essential Oils

Although vegetable oil seems necessary for cooking and baking, there are better alternatives you can use. It is good to explore and test new ways to cook. Some of them we have talked about in this article.  We know that we cannot live well without good oils. However, we need to keep an eye on the threats and diseases caused by excessive use of vegetable oils. Cooking with less vegetable oil can actually help you lose fat. Therefore, to lead a healthy and long life it is a good idea to watch the amount of cooking oils we use.