Fast food restaurants may be a dime a dozen these days, but would their easy recipes ever erase the memory of the perfect dishes that your mother dished out, when you came home famished, from school or the playground? Today, all family members, including mothers themselves, grab a bite from the nearest fast food eatery, before they hop back into the office. Dinner may be a pizza oozing with cheese, that either parent picked up on their way home. Flavors of home cooking have been forgotten memories today that visit you only in your dreams.

All the fat from the cheese and chips that fast food chains gift, nestle in your body and most of it is seen deposited around the midriff. These fats live in the place of the essential nutrients that home cooking might have provided. From a theoretical point of view, everyone agrees that fast food delicacies are deadly concoctions that their bodies do not need. People do grow nostalgic now and then about home cooking recipes and smells that wafted from grandmother’s kitchen, but somehow they go back to their fast food eateries, like an addict going back to his bottle. People have to be de-addicted from it, and giving them free recipes is one way of attracting people back to cooking wholesome food at home.

A balanced diet is the ultimate requirement for staying healthy, and one way - rather the only way - in which this can be managed, is by home cooking. There are plenty of home cooking recipes, and easy recipes at that, which make the dishes tasty and provide the necessary nutrition. Tasty dishes are the best way to make mealtimes a pleasure, and perfect mealtimes in which everyone join, are the best way to make family members bond together. In short, home cooked food and the dinner table can become the factor that knits the family together.

Dieticians and nutrition experts strongly recommend home cooking. While medical expertise itself endorses the need for home cooked food, simple layman’s wisdom is sufficient to understand the importance of cooking at home with recipes that ensure a balanced intake of food. People of developing countries rely less on fast food chains for subsistence, and most of the households in these countries have hundreds of recipes that have been handed down through generations. These are time tested and proven, with unchallengeable nutritive values and taste. They have their own traditional spices and herbs and marinades, and each recipe is unique in its own way.

Cooking is an art, and a well laid out table is a symbol of the interest a person takes in the family’s health, its gastronomic delights, and the bonding among the members of the family. Nothing will help this interest and care better than easy recipes. There are plenty of tasty and free recipes which may have a rather long preparation time and may require too much of labor. While these have their charm, they may frighten off the beginners, and make them indifferent to cooking. So start with the easier recipes, which can be whipped up quickly. While making the food simple, try to change the recipes, so that there is some variety. Somehow or other make the mealtimes attractive so that the family is attracted less and less to the junk food that goes by the name fast food.

Please do visit our site for hundreds of Free and easy Recipes for Home Cooking - Veg Recipes, Vegan Recipes, salads, soups, main course dishes, chili recipes, Appetizer recipes, desserts, Cookie Recipes, Chocolate recipes, and an extensive cooking guide.

Article Source: Home Cooking Lays the Foundations For a Healthy Body

With the world growing at a faster rate and as per our busy schedule, it is not surprising that eating out has become a part of our life and is a very common occurrence or rather we are bound to eat outside.

Eating out is a nice treat once in a while or a convenient option when you don’t have time to cook a meal. But, if you have to regularly consume food from outside, you should be very cautious about the nutritional value of the food. Here are some tips for making your restaurant meals as diet friendly as possible.

- most fast food restaurants and restaurant chains post nutritional information about their food offerings on their web sites, check them out.

- keep it small. Portion sizes at fast food counters and restaurants are usually bigger than what you would normally eat at home. Share a large meal with a friend, or ask to take leftovers home.

- pick nutrition over value, order foods that have been steamed, baked, broiled, grilled, stir-fried or roasted. The hidden fat and calories add up quickly when food is fried, deep-fried, breaded or served with rich sauces and gravies.

- if you ask for sauces and dressings on the side, you can control the amount that you eat. Often you can use less than is normally used and still enjoy the same taste.

- order much of vegetables and food rich in fiber- content.

- many of the restaurants have nutritional value menu, ask for it and make a smart choice accordingly.

- when choosing, be aware of highly caloric additions such as salad dressings, cheese, sour cream, etc. Sometimes, making your choice healthier is as simple as removing the condiments.

- drink water, low-fat milk or 100% fruit juice instead of soda pop. If you drink alcohol, limit it to one or two drinks.

- remember that healthy eating is about balance and enjoying your food. If you happened to overindulge at a meal, then plan on choosing some healthier choices over the next few days.

However, eating the home cooked food is beyond comparison how much so ever health consciousness is adapted. But, owing to the nature and timing of our work, we cannot help it. And thus the only way out is to be aware of the nutritious value of the food and avoid consuming food with high calorific or fat intakes for which you must have some knowledge in order to make a choice.

Palak Agarwal is a research analyst at Admanya.com, India’s leading consumer internet portal which educates consumers by providing extensive product information and robust research. Visit http://consumer.admanya.com for latest consumer reviews, buying tips, prices, advices, surveys and reports.

Article Source: Learn To Eat Healthy And Nutritious Food Outside

When out with friends or family, how easy it is to stop and eat at a fast food restaurant? It is very easy and convenient. We are all starved for more time. I was out recently with some friends and stopped at a fast food restaurant to eat. I hate fast food restaurants, but sometimes you just do not have time for anything else and you have to go there. You just have to make the best of it and make good choices while finding something healthy to eat.

If you’re forced to eat fast-food, here’s a tip to make sure that you’re not doing much damage to your body… ALWAYS AVOID the soda and anything deep fried including French Fries, hash browns, and anything breaded like chicken nuggets, chicken patties, or breaded fish sandwiches. These are all absolutely soaked in deadly trans fats from the industrial hydrogenated vegetable oils they use to fry all of these items.

Remember, as I’ve said before, I’ve seen studies indicating that as little as 1 gram of artificial trans fat per day can have serious degenerative internal effects in your body such as inflammation, clogging and hardening of the arteries, heart disease, various forms of cancer…not to mention packing on the ab flab. That’s as little as 1 gram!

Consider that a typical fast-food meal of a breaded chicken sandwich (or fish sandwich) along with an order of fries can contain as much as 10 grams of trans fat! Add on a cookie or small piece of pie for dessert (which are usually made with deadly margarine or shortening), and now you’re up to about 13 grams of trans fat with that entire meal.

If 1 gram a day is slowly killing you, imagine what 13 grams is doing! And that was only one meal that you ate. Some people are consuming 20-30 grams of trans fat per day, and not even realizing what they’re doing to themselves internally. Please realize that nobody, I mean NOBODY, is looking out for your health, except for YOU.

Anyway, back to the topic of how to avoid this stuff and eat a reasonably healthy meal on the rare occasion that you’re forced to eat fast-food. As for drinks, avoid the sodas…they’re nothing but heavily processed high fructose corn syrup which will surely end up as extra belly fat. And yes, that mean NO DIET SODA either! This stuff is pure evil to your body. Water is always the best drink, but if you need something with flavor, try unsweetened or lightly sweetened iced tea.

At breakfast, the best choice is an egg, ham, and cheese on an English Muffin (not on a Croissant, which is full of nasty Trans Fat, or a fruit& nut salad. At lunch or dinner, the best choices are a grilled chicken sandwich, chili, a grilled chicken salad without croutons (again croutons = more Trans Fat), or even just a plain cheeseburger. The main take-away point from this little fast-food article is that the nastiest stuff at these fast food joints are the sodas and fries, and any other deep fried items.

For any of you that have seen the movie "Super-Size Me", you saw how eating fast food every day absolutely destroyed that guy’s health, but did you happen to notice the one guy that was the king of eating Big Macs (or some kind of burger)? I don’t remember what kind of burger it was, but basically this guy has eaten these fast food burgers almost every day of his life for the past 30 years or something like that.

Did you notice that he stated that he almost never eats the fries or soda, even though he eats the burgers every day? And he’s not necessarily overweight. Now I’m not saying that fast-food burgers made with their refined white bread and low quality beef and cheese are the healthiest thing, but the point is it’s the fries and sodas that are the real health disaster.

Alright, so next time you’re out at one of these places, remember these tips and choose smart! By the way, if you haven’t heard yet, McD’s has added a nutrition label to all of their food wrappers now. Remember, that as little as one gram of trans Fat may cause some internal harm and now you can actually see how many grams of trans fat you’re eating right on the food wrapper. That might change your mind about finishing it.

For a fully comprehensive program on losing as much body fat as you want by following a smart, scientifically designed training and nutrition program, check out my program for both Men & Women.

Article Source: We All Have Choices When Forced to Eat Fast-Food - Make Healthy Ones!

Many people complain that eating healthy is really, really difficult. They just don’t know why it has to take so much time to provide healthy meals for themselves and their family.

Truth be told, it’s about as difficult as you make it. And it can be much more affordable than eating out all the time or eating convenience foods.

Your cooking techniques matter, for example. Just about everyone these days knows that frying foods is unhealthy. Yet we eat them all the time at fast food restaurants. After all, it tastes so good!

If you like the taste, it’s far better to stir fry foods at home. You only need a tablespoon or so of oil for most recipes, so you aren’t adding so much fat. Plus you can add fresh vegetables to really make your stir fry delicious. And it’s easy.

A basic stir fry takes some chopped meat, vegetables, a bit of oil and some seasonings. A lot of people use soy sauce in stir fry, and if you’re using a nonstick pan you may be able to get away with using only cooking spray and no oil at all, or even skipping it entirely. Season it up with some herbs, garlic or whatever you like, maybe throw in a handful of cashews or other nuts, and you have a healthy meal that didn’t take too much time to make.

Switching to whole grains helps as well. Stop buying white bread and go for wheat. Switch from white rice to brown. Whole grain pasta. These don’t take any extra time and are much better for you.

If you’re constantly pressed for time, get a crockpot or make extra portions when you cook. The crockpot can be started in the morning, so that when you come home you have a healthy meal waiting for you. Extra portions of many recipes can be frozen so that you have quick dinners or an easy lunch to take to work.

Changing your shopping habits also helps. If you keep chips, soda, ice cream and so forth out of the house, it’s much harder to snack on them. Simple avoidance can work wonders.

You can still eat meat when you want to eat healthy. Just buy the leaner cuts. Most Americans eat more meat than they need to, so consider cooking less of it. This is another area where I’ve found stir frying to be helpful. You feel like you’re getting more meat if it’s cut into small pieces by the time it makes it onto your plate. Mixing it up with a lot of vegetables also gives the illusion that there’s a good amount of meat there.

It takes time to change poor eating habits. It’s a lot of fun eating foods that aren’t so good for you. But you can develop a preference for healthier eating and still not find yourself crunched for time.

Stephanie Foster runs http://www.makehealthymeals.com/ as a place for people to learn to take the time to eat a little healthier. She offes a variety of crockpot recipes on her website.

Article Source: ArticleSpan

Neglecting breakfast has become the norm for most people. Most of us become extremely busy as we prepare for our day. As a crutch, we often dash to fast food restaurants in an effort to save time, making choices that favor convenience over health. Skipping breakfast can lead to overeating during snacking, lunch, and dinner - potentially increasing one’s risks of becoming overweight or developing maladies such as diabetes.

Breakfast is our first meal after a long night’s rest, so you should take the time to choose your energy sources wisely. By eating a healthy breakfast, not only will you boost your energy level, but you will also provide yourself with the fuel necessary to jump-start your day. A good breakfast means better concentration without feeling lethargic or worn-out.

Instead of becoming the victim of the negative health effects that come from skipping breakfast, take charge by incorporating spirulina-based superfood smoothie recipes into your day. Spirulina has more protein per gram than any other food, and it is the richest form of beta-carotene available to us. Superfood smoothies are easy to make and can be conveniently stored for later consumption during work, school or play.

Here are two easy superfood smoothie recipes made with spirulina-based superfood powder and anti-oxidant- rich fruit. Either of these will leave you satisfied for an extended period of time in order to maintain energy, retain nourishment and perform any given task with efficiency.

Berry Chocolate Smoothie

Blend:

- 1.5 cups pure water
- 1 frozen banana
- 1 cup frozen berries
- 1 round tablespoon spirulina-based superfood powder
- 1 round tablespoon raw chocolate bits
- 1 tablespoon cold-pressed coconut oil

Delicious: a total energizer!

Pear Superfood Smoothie

Blend:

- 1 cup water from fresh Thai coconut. Also simple pure water is fine if coconuts are not available…although a touch of agave or honey will help sweetening
- 1 fresh pear sliced into quarters and core removed (for added creaminess, freeze pear beforehand, or add ice)
- 2 tablespoons spirulina-based superfood powder
-2 tablespoons hemp seeds or meat from coconut for added protein

Purify, energize, shine with this total refresher!!!

Neglecting breakfast is not wise. For most of us, a busy day is the norm. As a crutch to get us through our busy schedules, many of us rely upon fast food restaurants in an effort to save time, making choices that favor convenience over health. Skipping breakfast can lead to overeating throughout the rest of the day.

Many of the foods we consume these days are processed, chemically altered, and extremely unnatural. People do not realize that eating these types of foods actually do a disservice to our bodies. Substituting a donut or greasy French fries with a refreshingly healthy, homemade superfood smoothie will make you feel good on the inside and look good on the outside.

You are bound to feel refreshed, energized and revitalized throughout the day with these superfood smoothie recipes, whether you have them for breakfast or for a healthy midday snack.

Billy’s Greens offers some of the best-tasting, healthiest superfood products anywhere, with ingredients sourced from the most nutrient-rich locations around the world. You can order right online at: www.billys-superfoods.com

Article Source: ArticleSpan

See pictures of recipes, along with user comments and more details at

Healthy Smoothie Recipes They Love