How Can I Tell if a Recipe is Healthy?

Question: How Can I Tell if a Recipe is Healthy?

Answer: When I am researching recipes, there are three main characteristics I look for:

• The inclusion of healthy ingredients
• The exclusion of unhealthy ingredients
• The cooking method

Here is what you should look for when evaluating a recipe. 

Healthy Ingredients

The healthiest ingredients are whole fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, healthy oils like olive oil, walnut oil, grape seed oil, and rice bran oil. Nuts, legumes and soy are healthy ingredients, and so are whole grain breads, and pastas. Meats and poultry should be lean whenever possible, and low fat dairy products are good too. I really like recipes that include several healthy ingredients, rather than just one or two. For example, Wild Rice with Cranberries and Apples is a great healthy dish with a great balance of whole grains, nuts, and fruit. Serve this with a lean chicken breast for an incredibly tasty and healthy meal. Pork with Cabbage and Apples is another example of a great recipe with several healthy ingredients. 

Leave Out Unhealthy Ingredients

Unhealthy ingredients include sugar, processed foods, saturated and trans fat, white refined flour, and products made with refined white flour. Evaluating a recipe can be easy. For example, a recipe that calls for processed foods like luncheon meats, processed cheese-products or high fat products like mayonnaise isn't healthy and should not become a recipe you use very often. Sometimes evaluating a recipe is more difficult. Spaghetti and meatballs seems like a healthy meal, but a large portion of the meal is pasta made from refined white flour and the meatballs may have a lot of saturated fat in them. On the flip side, the spaghetti sauce itself is very healthy with lots of tomatoes that give us vitamins and lycopene. Garlic, peppers, herbs seasonings and mushrooms are healthy ingredients you might find in a spaghetti recipe.
When you find a recipe that confuses you, just alter the recipe a bit. Make your meatballs from ground turkey meat and use a whole grain pasta, or decrease the serving size and add a big salad on the side.

Cooking Methods

The cooking method used in a recipe is very important. Deep-frying is probably the least healthy of the cooking methods, especially if the oil is used more than once. Pan frying might be a little better, but still not so good if you use a lot of oil and batters on your foods that absorb a lot of oil. Sauteing in a bit of olive oil or canola oil is better, and roasting in an oven is better yet. Boiling vegetables will not add any extra calories, but you will loose some of the valuable nutrients when you drain off the cooking water. Microwaving is a great way to cook vegetables because it is quick so not many nutrients are lost. Here are a couple examples of recipes prepared with different methods. Potatoes are a nice source of vitamin C and fiber if you leave on the skins. A medium sized baked potato only has about 100 calories and is a healthy food when cooked in this manner. A french-fried potato is not so healthy. The fat used to deep-fry the potato is not healthy, and the potato absorbs a lot of oil, so the same size potato that is french fried has many more calories and fat. If you like french fries, try slicing the potato into strips and lightly coat the strips with olive oil. Bake them on a baking sheet until they are tender.
Another example of good verses bad cooking methods would be this example with a chicken breast. Baking a chicken breast in the oven with some salsa or chicken broth is a healthy way to prepare the chicken. If you take that same chicken breast, coat it with a batter and deep fry it, that piece of chicken becomes an unhealthy, fattening food.
Always look for healthy ingredients. Avoid unhealthy ingredients or find healthier substitutes. Choose recipes that let you bake, roast, microwave or saute your foods.

By Shereen Jegtvig