By now, we all know that ingesting too much fat of just about any kind can affect one's health adversely. So, developing handy little ways to protect your cardio-vascular integrity, without breaking too much of a sweat about it, is something a smart person is going to value. Life should not be a grim odyssey of highly disciplined regimens, focused solely on keeping the physical entity alive, while the fun-loving, relaxed side of one's spirit languishes.
Now, here's a fact that some might not know: fat, in it's many forms, is essential to your well-being!
That's right. Your physical complex needs to take in fat to be able to make your day better by keeping your psychological complex well oiled. Without fat, your nervous system is a veritable basket case of needless discomfort. Without fat, your body has to work a lot harder to give you the energy to function in a way where you aren't noticing how tired you are and how hard it is to keep going on what you need to get finished. People with too little fat to run on are MORE prone to disease conditions than those who have a little more than they need.
So, clearly, you have to keep a balanced intake of fat going. Experts tell you this fat or that is better for you and stipulate how much you should be allowing yourself to ingest. That's a good start, but most of us aren't going to be that attentive to what we eat as we do everything we can to enjoy the life we have, and the ones who are that attentive, for the most part, don't seem to be enjoying themselves all that much. I believe the trick that we use to keep ourselves roughly on the good side of fat intake has to be a lot simpler to be widely embraced. (Drum roll here).
The secret, friends, is to cook your own delicious evening dinner, leave plates, pans and dishes right there, go to bed, sleep, wake up, have a nice hot cup of your preferred beverage and then wash the dishes under a thin stream of COLD - yes, I said COLD - water, using a sponge only, NO detergent. If everything you used comes out clean, without greasy residue, and without noticeable effort, you're home free. If not, you need to change something in your cooking, like using either less, or a different kind of fat and you need to keep trying until you get it right.
Does this mean no frying or braising? Absolutely not! Food has to make your mouth water and there is no other way to make it so other than using fat as a cooking medium. In our case, for the most part, frying precedes braising and stewing. The key to great tasting food is the choreography of bringing the raw materials to the pan - first this and then that and son on - using the right temperature for the job and knowing when to take the pan off the heat. In that way, fats are incorporated into the end result in a virtually seamless process of amalgamation. Of that kind of food, you can have seconds and not wake up in the middle of the night with heartburn.
Adding vegetables to meats is essential. Sorry, carnivorous types, but that's an inescapable law of the universe.
Hey, we're not kill-joys over here. Life affords us a beautiful abundance of gustatory delights and we should indulge ourselves in those things with grace and gratitude. Take fat out of the picture and the whole thing dims to a shadow of its true glory. So eat fat, by all means, but do it most often in the context of your own cooking. Afterwards wash up with COLD water only and a sponge (keep that sponge clean, squeeze it dry after use and place it scouring side down too dry). The results of your efforts will tell you whether you're within fat intake limits, or not. Simple as that.
Arguably, this little tip has the potential to do more good for people than all the other, more complicated issues I generally turn my writing to.
No comments:
Post a Comment