The primary key to your good health and lifestyle begins with your journey from the kitchen. Our day to day life starts with our kitchen which plays a major game-changer in our physical and mental health status. Wrong Kitchen habits may lead to severe health hazards.
Cooking pattern, utensils, ingredients and food storage are all major factors for achieving good physical and mental health. Many of you may not be aware of it, but good mental health is the direct reflection of good physical health.
We addressed this issue with celebrity nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar and talked with her regarding the kitchen’s role in our health, who shared a few kitchen rules for wholesome health. Many of us are hardly aware of these kitchen habits which may lead to very serious health problems. These kitchen rules are not only environment-friendly but are also good for your hormonal balance and nutritional requirements. They require reducing the use of plastic in the kitchen, reintroducing iron vessels, and avoiding the use of microwave and air fryers and the likes of such electronic devices.
Let’s know about these important kitchen habits for a healthy lifestyle and disease-free health.
Clean eating: kitchen rules for healthy living
1. Start removing Plastic from Your Kitchen
We also know the fact that plastic is bad for health but we don’t want to understand the severity of it. It is universally known that plastic is carcinogenic. What's more, is that plastic is a major pollutant for the environment. The whole world is a worry for the usage of plastic and even our government banned the usage of plastic. But, still, we can find plastic in almost everybody’s kitchen. Use of plastic containers, tiffin boxes, and water bottles must completely be avoided. Plastic releases oestrogenic chemicals in the body, disturbing ratio between male and female hormones. This can especially be harmful if you have PCOD, are at puberty or have adult acne. Use cloth bags for grocery, fruit and vegetable shopping. Fruits and veggies packed in plastic or thermocol must be avoided. Say no to cling films, plastic tiffin boxes (especially for steaming hot food). Use steel or glass tiffin boxes and use malmal cloth for wrapping Rotis, avoid the use of aluminium foils. Drink water in steel or copper water bottles when traveling. Avoid buying plastic mineral water bottles as well.
2. Go back to your iron vessels
It’s a high time to bid goodbye to non-stick kadhais and bring back iron kadhais in your kitchen. Using iron utensils is having much more benefit than relying on harmful plastics. It’s one of the secrets of welcoming good health. "The iron utensils are an important and undervalued source of iron in your diet. Everything from your sabzis, curries, upmas to pohas should be cooked in iron kadhais and it will provide you with your daily recommended intake of iron.
3. Avoid using the microwave and heat your food on the burner
We are blessed with technology and it comes with many benefits as well as many negative points. “Microwave’ is a new luxurious utensil for heat and cook your food. But unfortunately, microwave imparts harmful radiations to your food. Rujuta informs that microwaving is harmful to micronutrients of the food as it heats them at extremely high temperatures. It breaks chemical bonds of micronutrients, as a result of which they get oxidized and become toxic for the body. So, no matter the convenience, always prefer heating, cooking food on a burner. A little extra effort here and there can take you a long way in terms of achieving good health and being disease-free.
