Are you fond of cooking at home? Here are some heart healthy tips for cooking. It’s essential to use healthy and nutritious ingredients and most of all, follow a preparation routine that is both healthy and heart-friendly. Whenever you make, cook and prepare homemade meals, the advantage is you have more control over the overall healthfulness and nutritional content of the foods that you eat. Best of all it’s cost-effective, it will enable you to save money!

Follow these heart healthy tips for cooking so that you can turn your kitchen into a heart-healthy hub of your home:

1. Instead of using salt to flavor your foods, use healthy alternatives like vinegar, herbs, onions, low-fat or fat free salad dressings and sauces, as well as tomatoes for better health. This will benefit most especially those who have high cholesterol and blood pressure levels.

2. Preserve the colors and nutrients in the vegetables by cooking them quickly through stir-frying or steaming.

3. Use your freezer and your time wisely. You can make your foods last longer by preparing ample meals to last for several other meals. Once cooked, set aside a portion and freeze it so that you can have a ready-made nutritious treat for your family whenever you are simply too tired to bother cooking.

4. Avoid seasonings that have an increased salt content as this will boost your risk for high blood pressure. Come up with healthy substitutes like spices and herbs or you can buy one of those seasoning mixes that are salt-free. Use citrus zest, hot chilies or even lemon juice to add some flavor to your meals.

5. To cover a thousand nutritious needs, prepare a smoothie. Throw in a banana in your blender and add some frozen kiwi, berries or whatever fruit is available at home. You can also add some juice, orange or some low-fat yogurt, or fat-free protein powder. Just imagine, you can get your 5 servings of fruit in one glass of delicious shake! Try to make this a healthy family habit – it’s healthy, cool, easy and refreshing.

6 Processed, canned as well as preserved vegetables normally have very high levels of salt content. When shopping for groceries, opt for low-sodium vegetables or you can choose the frozen varieties. Choose products with less sodium content.

7. When baking, opt for low-fat yogurt or plain fat free ones. Choose low fat and fat free sour cream as well.

Use these heart healthy tips for a healthier family!