It's the start of a new year, and with that comes New Year's resolutions to live healthier and get in shape. Soon enough, however, gym memberships decline and fast food line-ups start to get longer again. New Year Resolutions start to die.
But, there’s a small percentage of people who manage to turn their resolution into a healthy lifestyle. How can you become one of them? One way to do so is to eat healthier by making your own meals rather than eating out. Today, we take a look at the barriers that could hold you back from eating healthier, along with tips to overcome those barriers.
I Don’t Know How to Cook
Let’s start at the beginning. You can’t cook healthy meals if you don’t know how to cook. Even if you do know how to make some dishes, how do you stay excited about eating at home if you’re eating the same thing every night? If you’re looking for ideas in the kitchen, dabble with cookbooks. There’s a wide range of cookbooks that can give you options for great, fast meals. For example, Cookin’ with the Caps cookbook by the Vancouver Whitecaps FC lists the favourite meals of Whitecap players and how to prepare them.
Also, if you’re looking to upgrade your kitchen, consider investing in an oven with cooking programs that can do the cooking for you. Cooking programs come in both single and double ovens and have a wide array of cooking options. This Samsung double oven (also available in single ovens) is one of the newer ovens on the market to include cooking programs. This particular oven allows you to choose specific recipes to cook and allows you to cook meat at your preference from rare to well done. There are a lot of options for ovens that come with cooking programs, so it’s best to talk to one of our Product Experts to find your best fit.
I Don’t Have Enough Time to Cook
Another potential setback to your healthy lifestyle goals could be lack of time. Take advantage of new breakthroughs in cooking appliances to shave some time off your meal prep.Induction cooktops heat up much faster than conventional electric stovetops: instead of having to heat up the coils, which then heat up your pot, which then cooks your food – which is what traditional electric cooktops do – induction cooktops directly heat up your pots and pans to cook your food. Flex zones such as the one found on Bosch’s induction cooktop also allows you to cook a large batch of food but also provides the option to use the same space to instead cook multiple smaller items at once.
I’m Not Getting All the Nutrients in My Food
Boiling or frying vegetables tend to leech the nutrients, vitamins and minerals from them. Fortunately, there’s a solution for that: steaming. While using steam in your cooking isn’t new, steam ovens are a growing trend in the homes of people who want to eat healthily.Not only does steam cooking keep the nutrients in your food, it has other health benefits as well. The amount of fat and sodium used to flavour a meal can be reduced because herbs and spices can be used instead. Steam cooking doesn’t require oil or butter, cutting down the fat content significantly. As noted in The Globe and Mail, “[steam cooking] is one of the best methods to preserve easily damaged nutrients, such as vitamin C and many B vitamins.”If you’re not ready to commit to a full steam oven yet, start simple: add steaming racks to your pots so you can get the health benefits of steaming.
Good luck on your resolutions! Here’s to rock hard abs and steam cooked veggies! If you have any questions on how our products can help you maintain that healthy lifestyle, contact one of our Product Experts. We're happy to help.