If you are looking to clean up your eating this year, incorporate more fruits and vegetables, and maybe even lose a little weight, you don’t have to resort to fad diets, nor do you need to spend hours in the kitchen. There are lots of simple secrets you can use to start cooking healthier meals without too much effort, so you can be the happiest, healthiest version of you possible.

Plan your meals

If you want to start cooking healthier meals, then you really do need to start with a plan. Planning your meals will enable you to ensure that you get a good mix of all the right nutrients over the week, while also giving you a clear guide to which produce you need to buy at the store, so you can avoid panic buying or throwing junk food into your cart because you have no ideas what you need. Having a plan is the first step to future success, so be sure to take the time each week to jot one down.

Make the produce the main event

Often, we end up cooking meals that are less healthy than optimum simply because we make the meat or the potatoes the main event and relegate the fruits and veggies to side dishes without giving them much thought. If you switch this around and start to think of your meat as the side and your produce as the main event, and you take the time to look into ways you can make them tastier, perhaps by preparing a zingy lime salad dressing or roasting root vegetables with herbs and spices to give them more flavor, then you will start taking in more nutrients, and probably eating fewer calories overall too.

Invest in an air fryer

If you have a little money to spare and you want to spend it on something that will help you eat a healthier diet, then you should definitely consider investing in an air fryer. Why? Because the air fryer enables you to cook your favorite fried foods from fried chicken to potato fries - you can even learn how to make okra in an air fryer here - with a fraction of the oil. In fact, most recipes will require no more than one tablespoon of oil in the air fryer, whereas they could use as many as 3 cups when made in the traditional manner! That’s a huge calories saving, and the food tastes just as good, if not better too, so it’s a real no-brainer.

Go for whole grains

When it comes to eating grains, if you want to make your meals much healthier, you should choose whole grains like brown rice and bulgur wheat over refined grains like white rice because they contain more nutrients, particularly B vitamins and zinc, and they will help you to feel fuller for longer, which means you are less likely to snack too.

Switch salt for herbs and spices

Okay, so you probably aren’t going to want to give up salt completely because it can undoubtedly bring out the flavors of any dish and make the blandest meals seem more palatable, but you can probably cut down, lower your sodium levels and do your heart a favor. One of the easiest ways to cut down on salt levels is to replace some of the salt you would usually use with herbs and spices that deliver on the flavor front. From curry powder to Italian herb mix, there are so many options for flavoring your food the healthy way that you will never get bored.

Use a smaller plate

If you tend to cook pretty healthily, but you always seem to put on weight, it could be that you are simply eating too much. Even eating a hundred calories too much each day can see you gain a significant amount of weight over the course of a year, so it is important that you get your portion sizes under control. A really simple way to do this is to eat from smaller plates. Obviously, when you do this, you can fit less food on the plate but because the plate is still full, it tricks your mind into thinking you have eaten a lot, so you will still be just as satisfied with a few less calories.

As you can see, the secrets to healthier cooking are simple and easy to implement. By making a few simple changes you can really improve the nutritional profile of the food you consume and lead a healthier, happier life as a result.