Pampering is not restricted to children, even the parents need it when they are taking infinite challenges in their day-to-day life.
What is the better way you can make Mother’s Day special? loading gifts, joining her in healthy cooking classes, presenting her the cookbooks, preparing her favourite dishes, helping her in doing household tasks and many more options are ahead of you.
However, is it restricted to a single day wherein she takes your responsibility throughout the year?
Though age is just a number, she is always been outstanding in her capabilities and undergoes several metabolic, psychological, physiological changes in her body- says the research.
Studies show that adopting a healthy lifestyle with a well-balanced diet and physical activities reduces the risk of many complications.
Supporting and encouraging your mom to inculcate healthy cooking methods/options that require less oil and retain more nutrients is a wise choice.
Healthy cooking methods:
Do you think you are healthy by cooking at home with all locally available foods?
Certainly not, healthy choices are the first step in a healthy diet; secondly, using the skill of healthy cooking methods makes your food retain nutrients, makes it delicious, unique and healthy.
A simple key to retain nutrients is with the below mentioned incredible healthy cooking methods to make you “a super mom”.
Steaming:
Steaming is one of the healthiest cooking methods to retain most of the nutrients in food, conserves the fiber, color, texture and flavor of vegetables. Steaming also makes the food more digestible so that body absorbs nutrients easily. This method doesn’t require oil by making the food low in calories.
Examples of steaming include; idli, dhokla, steamed masala vada, seafood, muthias, cabbage rolls, modak, pudding, puttu, idiyappam mixed vegetables etc.
Pressure cooking:
When steam under pressure is used, the method is known as pressure cooking. This is a common method of our Indian cooking and the temperature of boiling water can be raised above 100°C.
This method kills microbes making food safe and hygienic to consume. Here, the food is cooked faster, consumes less fuel and requires very little oil.
Rice, meat, gravies, lentil, soup, roots and tubers are usually pressure cooked.
Grilling:
Grilling refers to cooking the food by exposing food to direct heat. This process involves placing whole or sliced food on the griller. Grilling enhances flavour and texture of the food to be consumed.
The base dishes to be marinated with ingredients such as turmeric, butter, curd, garlic, ginger and many more when grilling.
Papads, corn, phulkas, vegetables, chicken, fish can be prepared by this method.
Poaching:
Poaching is a technique of cooking by submerging food in a liquid such as water, milk, stock and wine. Poaching in milk may seem unusual, but foods like chicken, fish and certain vegetables are poached with milk as lactic acid in the milk tenderizes the food being cooked making it incredibly juicy and tasty.
Poaching requires relatively low temperature (about 70–80°C) which is suitable for delicate foods like egg, poultry, fish and fruit. Poaching is often considered a healthy method of cooking because it does not require fat to cook and is easily digestible.
Roasting:
While roasting, the food is subjected directly on a hot tava or girdle or sand or fire and is cooked. This method takes less (or without) oil, releases the aroma and enhances the taste.
Essential oils in the spices (coriander, cumin, fennel, carom seeds, etc.) are released on roasting which can fight infections and are good for skin and hair.
Papad, chapati, dosa, thepla, paratha, semolina, pearl, finger millets etc will enhance the texture and color after roasting.
Avoid over roasting at a higher temperature (above 280°C) as it will release acrylamides that may cause cancer.
Stir-frying:
Stir-frying is a cooking technique in which ingredients are fried in a minimal amount of oil. This is a quick-cooking at high heat for retaining color, texture, and nutritional value.
Vegetables, paneer, chicken and fish are stir-fried in our cooking. Prevent the food burn in the pan due to minimal presence of oil, keep on splashing a few drops of water in the pan.
Baking:
As everybody knows the food is cooked in an oven in this method and the temperature range maintained in an oven is 120°C – 260°C. Foods become light, fluffy and impart a unique flavour to the dishes.
Foods prepared by baking are custards, pies, biscuits, pizzas, buns, bread and cakes. We have an option of tandoor as well in recent ovens where paneer tikka kebabs, tandoori chicken, tandoori meat and fish etc are also prepared.
Some cooking involves the use of combined methods; for example, semolina upma (roasting & boiling). Always know your cooking methods and choose the healthy ones.
Choose wisely, be healthy.