Tips For Making A Good Low Cholesterol Meal

Making a low cholesterol meal is not as different from making a ordinary meal, whatever a ordinary meal may be. In fact, the main distinction between a low cholesterol meal and an ordinary meal could be said to be the ingredients you use and the way you prepare it. In most cases the low cholesterol meal is not an exotic dish but simply the same meal you would always have just with the different ingredients added. This article will give you some tips that can help anyone create meals for themselves and their families that are low cholesterol and delicious to eat.

Tip 1 – Choose Your Meats Wisely

In many cases, the easiest way to create a low cholesterol meal is to take a meal that you currently enjoy and change the protein that is present in the meal.  So if you eat a lot of red meat in your meals try substituting it with fish or chicken. If you like lasagna for instance, try substituting beef mince for chicken mince. You may even decide to use a low fat cheese and milk for the Bechamel sauce too. Try cooking the chicken with canola oil rather than vegetable oil. Use fresh ingredients, especially tomatoes and other vegetables, to make the tomato sauce. Use garlic in your sauce too.

As you can see, the lasagna can be just as tasty using these ingredients than using a ground beef as the main ingredient. When it comes to lasagna, another option is to make a broccoli and chicken lasagna. This is really tasty and a great alternative to the traditional lasagna. Chicken and broccoli will be lower in cholesterol than ground beef.

There are certain meats that work better for a low cholesterol meal than others.  Red meat is generally high in cholesterol so it is very important for you to choose the leanest cuts of meat when choosing red meat.  Chicken can be considered to be low cholesterol if the skin is removed from the chicken prior to cooking and the chicken is prepared properly.  Fish and shellfish are also considered to be good for low cholesterol meals because different types of seafood generally have very little cholesterol present in its natural state.

Tip 2 – Use The Right Cooking Techniques

Many low cholesterol diets fail because, although the person is choosing low cholesterol ingredients, they are not cooking the food in a way that allows it to retain its low cholesterol properties.  Low cholesterol cooking is not difficult to accomplish, it just requires the changing of some common cooking techniques that many people that cook on a regular basis do not even think about.  By changing the way that you choose to cook your foods, you can make almost any food combination a low cholesterol meal.

One of the biggest things to remember about cooking a low cholesterol meal is that the additional ingredients that are used to cook the foods can add cholesterol as well.  It is best to avoid using butters and oils to cook your food if you are attempting to create a low cholesterol meal because these ingredients can actually add cholesterol to the food while it is cooking.  Many of the people that routinely make a low cholesterol meal find that grilling or steaming their preferred foods cooks the foods perfectly while still allowing the foods to remain low cholesterol.

And a final tip is to cook your own meals. Avoid as much processed or packaged food as possible. By it very nature processed food is cooked in substances that give it a stronger flavor or preserve it longer. Many of these substances will increase cholesterol so should be avoided.