When it comes to the health of your heart, your daily lifestyle choices can make a significant impact on your well-being. As most of us already know, fried food is bad for us. However, why is fried food bad for our health?
According to research, it has been found that about a million men and women around the world suffer from cardiovascular problems if they eat fried snacks like fish, fries, etc. High consumption of fried food increased the risk for coronary heart diseases, heart failure, and stroke significantly. Additional analysis has concluded that no fried food is better than another, whether you cook them in a fryer or a springform cake pan. Hence, dieticians discourage the consumption of such meal choices if you want to adopt a healthy lifestyle.
What Are Some Healthy Alternatives Of Fried Food?
Frying is a cooking technique. So the better question would be: What are some alternative cooking styles you can use instead of frying? There is a significant relationship between fried food and your heart.
1. Stir-Frying And Sautéing
Stir-frying and sautéing are considered the best alternatives. Apart from being easy and quick, the food retains its flavors. Vegetables are still filled with nutrients, even after the cooking process.
In sautéing, the vegetables are cooked over high heat with little oil and other liquids like some aromatics, water, or broth. Additionally, this method can also be used for almost every ingredient like green beans, onions, zucchini, peppers, mushrooms, etc.
On the other hand, stir-frying involves heating the meal at a much higher temperature. Additionally, the ingredients are stirred and tossed constantly so that they do not burn. Stir-frying is mostly seen in Asian cuisines.
2. Steaming
Steaming food has a bad rap and is often associated with boring and bland meals. However, it is easily one of the best healthy fried food alternatives for cooking. If done right, steaming will make your meal flavorful, bright, and tender; additionally, it will retain its nutrients. Steaming is best considered for delicate vegetables like asparagus. Some vegetables can be steamed to soften them up before the sautéing process, like carrots and Brussels sprouts.
3. Grilling
Everyone loves fried meals. However, what they do not know is that fried food causes heartburn. Therefore, you must come up with cooking alternatives; one of them is grilling. Grilling is an easy cooking method primarily used on foods with a deep, rich, and smoky flavor.
Vegetables can get some caramelization so that they become crisp and sweet. You can also grill meat to get those beautiful grill marks and great taste. Before you start the grilling process, you should let your food sit in a delicious mix of marinade for at least half-an-hour. You will find a lot of delightful grilling recipes only. Do not forget to buy a grill for this purpose.
4. Baking and Roasting
Roasting is considered one of the best ways of cooking today. In roasting, you first caramelize the meal in a hot oven, which will give it an intense savory and sweet flavor; this happens because the natural sugars in the foods come out. Additionally, if you do not feel like cooking, you can simply roast your food in the oven. All you need to do is add the dish, some oil-tossed vegetables, and seasoning; roast them at a high temperature.
Baking, or also known as oven-fried, is a cooking technique that you can use to bake foods that are normally fried. These foods will still come out to be delicious and crispy.
5. Air Frying
If you love to eat the classics and still want to avoid the downsides of fried food and heart attacks, then air fried food is a healthy alternative. Air fryers are popular kitchen appliances that you can use to create popular fried foods like potato chips, pastries, and meat. The device circulates hot air around the food so that it creates a crispy and crunchy exterior.
Since this method is quite new, most people ask – is air fried food healthy? Yes, air fried foods are lip-smacking and delicious! As compared to traditional frying, you simply need one tablespoon of oil to get the desired texture and taste of the deep-fried dish. They also contain lower levels of calories and fat.
Final Thoughts
From the above, we now understand that there are many different techniques to cook foods that are supposed to be fried. However, fried foods can lead to several negative health consequences that can lead to heart ailments. Apart from these, fried foods are known to contribute to excess weight gain and obesity. If you want to live a healthy lifestyle, one of your first tasks will be to eliminate the need for fried dishes!
What do you think of all this? Let us know in the comments!
Nellie Rodriguez is a full-time freelance writer and researcher on various best practices for a healthy living. She is dedicated to helping as many people worldwide as possible by giving tips to keep natural and healthy. Her recipes are great in taste and can be cooked without much hassle.