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6 Tips For Planning and Cooking A Healthy Meal

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Cooking a healthy meal is not something that just happens. To prepare a meal that is healthy and tastes good takes a little bit of planning. This is not rocket science, but you do need to work at it. Here are 6 tips to planning and cooking a healthy meal.

1. First of all you need to put together a meal plan for the week. If you have an active lifestyle or kids to get from one event to the next after school knowing what you are going to eat is a big key. Otherwise you will find yourself in line at McDonald's for another unhealthy meal. Plan what you are going to serve around the activities for the week. Make it as easy on yourself while still providing a quality healthy meal that everyone will enjoy.

2. Shop with a purpose. Going off a list that you have made based on the healthy meals you are going to make will save you time and money. Without a list you could end up making trips back to the store to purchase what you have forgot or doing too much impulse buying. Organize your list as to the lay out of the supermarket you will be shopping at to save you time.

3. Be sure and include plenty of fruits and vegetables with at least 1 serving of each per meal. A healthy meal needs a little variety and you can plan for that in advance. Fruits and vegetables really allow you to jazz your meals up while making them healthier.

4. Watch how you cook your meals. Steaming vegetables helps retain flavor and nutrients and boiling or grilling meat helps drain off fat. Cooking more fish and chicken and even replacing beef with turkey is another way to add variety and create a more healthy meal as well.

5. Cooking with seasoning and spices is a great way to add flavor and variety as well, you can find ones that all the family likes and use them. You can add seasoning to vegetables as well as meat, chicken or fish. Look at your cookbook for more ideas on creating your own spices.

6. Serve proper portions for the size of your kids. If you are serving a healthy meal can you fit everything on the plate? Seconds are o.k. but overeating just to finish it all is not.

Healthy meals are like anything in our lives. They are important and take a little bit of thought to achieve. Hopefully this article has given you some ideas on how to do that.