Staying healthy should be one of the top priorities in everyone’s life. Exercising, having a healthy and well-balanced diet, and making sure your mental and emotional health is better than ever are all ways that lead to a healthy life. A healthy life means a healthy body and a healthy heart. The only issue that most people face when staying healthy is that they don’t really know how to. For instance, a balanced diet is the key to a healthy heart but how do you maintain a well-balanced diet? Well through the kitchen of course but do you know how to cook properly in the kitchen?
Are You Seasoning Your Food Properly?
Growing up, there was the possibility that you watched someone cook and you noticed the array of seasonings that were being used. As you got older, you used what you learned and implemented it into your cooking style.
However, as good as your food may taste, there is the chance that you aren’t seasoning your food properly when you cook. It can come off as quite a shock, especially when your food tastes amazing every time, but you may be overdoing it. You may be using too much salt in your food.
This is usually because of the different types of seasoning blends you’re incorporating. Most of them are salt blends and using multiple salt blends in one meal adds a ton of salt to your diet, which adds stress to your heart.
You May Also Like
RELATED: 6 Things That Happen to Your Body When You Consume Too Much Salt
What Ingredients You Actually Need
Using a bunch of salt blends is not the way to a healthy heart. Mixing seasoned salt, garlic salt, old bay, cajun blends, and any other blends that include salt when seasoning your food is a recipe for disaster.
When cooking, you actually don’t need many ingredients if you know how flavors work. There are five basic seasonings you should have in your kitchen: garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, salt and paprika. There are more seasonings that can be added to this list (herbs) but these are the basic ones everyone should have.
This is because they’re simple and get the job done. Using just these in your dishes will not only make your food taste just as good, but it’s also better and healthier for you.
Why It’s Important To Not Overdo It
It’s important to not overdo it because too many seasonings can lead to present and future problems. In the present time, if you consume something that has too much salt or seasoning, it can lead to headaches, a rise in your blood pressure, becoming very thirsty and swelling in your hands and feet.
You May Also Like
Continuing to add excessive amounts of seasonings to your food can lead to future problems such as stroke, hypertension, kidney disease and heart disease.
When your heart is affected because of too much salt, that can also lead to high blood pressure and heart problems. This then leads to kidney problems and other issues such as developing prediabetes and or type 2 diabetes.
RELATED: Seasoned Salt: Good Or Bad (And What To Use Instead)
Helpful Tips To Use Next Time You’re in The Kitchen
Though you may think cooking should come naturally, that's not how it works. When doing anything (even cooking) researching is a great tip for learning how to improve or even start to do something.
Next time, before you get into the kitchen to cook, do some research about which seasonings would go better with the type of meal you plan to make and how to reduce your salt intake.
Then start to implement what you discovered. If you’re going to use a seasoning blend, use fewer seasonings on top of that. Instead, only add black pepper or simply just use the seasoning blend by itself.
Try using olive oil instead when cooking. Olive oil is a healthier oil that doesn’t contain as many calories as others.
Lastly, stick with it. The taste may not be what you’re used to but once you get the hang of how to use less to gain more, you’ll be able to tweak recipes to your liking that taste great and are still healthy for you.
A healthy heart starts in the kitchen, so put on your apron and get to seasoning (the right way)!
