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If you have just started cooking at home, then most of your meals must be coming from recipes of your favorite foods right out of your cookbooks or from recipes provided by friends and family members. Unfortunately, most of our favorite foods are not very healthy, or haven’t you heard that all good things in life are unavailable, fattening or married to someone else! However, if you plan to go on cooking for the rest of your life, it is important that you incorporate healthy food in your menus as much as possible so that you can actually obtain health benefits from home cooking. Some tips and tricks for making healthy, wholesome and smart food right at home are:

· Start using vegetables in your meal. Most non-vegetarians do not really like having vegetables apart from salads. But by now everybody knows that you have to have at least five to seven portions of fruits and vegetables in your diet if you want to make it a healthy one. In order to add vegetables to your diet, you can definitely start with providing a portion of salad with every helping of meat, and gradually go on to include a helping of cooked or steamed vegetables along with it.

· As far as possible, try using organic vegetables. However, you must keep in mind that organic vegetables, apart from being costlier than regular ones, also do not taste as good. So start introducing organic veggies in your diet one by one instead of using organic only all at once, otherwise you might never be able to develop a taste for your vegetables and your family might start dreading your cooking.

· Cut down on fats. Of course this means not making French fries or onion rings with every meal, but it also means that you use lesser fat for making regular dishes as well. Buy non stick pans and utensils since they actually let you cook in lesser amounts of fat than required by normal vessels. You must know that trans fats are akin to poison nowadays and anything containing this should definitely be left out of the kitchen. You should also substitute butter, margarine and animal fats with vegetable oils since these are healthier and therefore, easier on your arteries. Use olive oil or some a seed oil instead of animal fats and butter. If you bake at home, then you can always substitute seed oil in place of butter and shortening. This will give you almost the same result but will produce food that is healthier to eat.

· Do not boil, fry or cook too much. It is a long known fact that overcooking makes food lose all its nutrition. Therefore, avoid cooking food at high heat for long intervals. Do not boil it or cook it too much. In case of vegetables, try steaming them wherever possible instead of cooking them on a direct flame. While it is important to cook meats properly, try to cook them for longer periods on low temperatures instead of cooking them on very high temperatures. This will ensure that your meat gets cooked without getting burned, charred or losing its nutrients.