October, 2009

Eating your Tofu, Quick and Easy Recipes

Eating your Tofu, Quick and Easy Recipes

Tofu is one of the healthier foods that you should incorporate in your diet. It is low in cholesterol and calories yet it is high in protein and vitamins. Also known as bean curd, tofu is often used in soups. It is quite easy to prepare and with some quick and easy recipes you can have a meal with tofu any day in the week.

You can pan fry it, add to it salads, combine it with meat, fish, and even make it info sandwich fillings. There are a lot of things that you can do with your tofu. For one, you can prepare it as a dip for your crackers and chips. All you need is to add sautéed garlic and onion to tofu, blend in a food processor and add some salt and pepper to taste. Make sure that you remove as much water as you can from the tofu, first before you mix them all up. This is a very healthy dip which you can use for snacks and even for parties.

In recent years, more and more people are becoming acquainted with tofu and loving it, if I might add. Tofu sales in the supermarket have been on a steady increase. Tofu is a good substitute for meat protein because compared to meat it contains more protein and less cholesterol. And with a lot of new recipes to cook tofu, you won’t get tired of it.

Tofu dishes are often quite tasty because every seasoning or ingredient will stand out. Tofu in itself is not very tasty. So with even very little seasonings, you can create quite a tasty tofu dish. You just need to know how to prepare them. You can easily put square tofu on top of a dish but its not really the best way to prepare tofu.

One dish that is quite easy to make is combining tofu with mushrooms. You will need large mushrooms for this one since you will be stuffing the hollowed part with tofu. Prepare the tofu stuffing by adding green onions, crushed garlic, a little bit of soy sauce, a little bit of oyster sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. Once you’re done stuffing the mushroom, you bake the lot not more than 15 minutes. This is quite a treat.

If you want something to spice up your meal, a chili tofu dish might do the trick. What you do is marinate cube tofu in a bowl of chili powder mixed with soy sauce and garlic. After marinating for 15 minutes or so place the tofu along with the marinade in a heated pan with olive oil. Cook the tofu until they are crispy on the sides. To get that excess oil out of the tofu, placing them on a kitchen towel should do the trick.

You can of course combine your tofu dish with other combinations. Lamp, burger, crab meat, potatoes, noodles and even rice would go perfect with your tofu dishes.

You can even make a tofu burger. All you need is to mix tofu with flour to form the patties and fry on a pan or grill. You can add ketchup and mustard afterwards. If you want to be fancy, adding barbecue sauce would be great as well. These are just a few of the quick and easy recipes for your tofu dishes which you can make.

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The Healthy and Unhealthy Drinks

The Healthy and Unhealthy Drinks

Wondering why you don’t eat too much but still keep on gaining weight?  Then maybe you drink is not healthy at all.  There are hundreds of beverages out there that can boost your waistline.

You have to be cautious of what you drink.  Coffee, although it has significant health effects, can be making you fat.  If you drink coffee with full fat dairy and artificial flavorings, and do not forget about chocolate sprinkles, then it is highly likely that this is more detrimental than beneficial.

To maximize the health benefits of coffee, it is better to drink it plain or with soymilk.   Or you can just switch to green tea which is much better for you since it is a rich source of anti-oxidants.

Sugary summer drinks like margarita or a pina colada doubles your sugar and calorie intake.  A can or a glass of this can give you 800 calories.  If you’re looking for cool, alcoholic beverage to share in a hot night, then switch to red wine or light beer.

Red wine can reduce coronary heart disease and can lower cholesterol count, thus, reducing risk of high blood pressure or hypertension.  Red wine can also maintain the immune system.  It also have polyphenols which is an excellent anti-oxidant.

Polyphenols lower cholesterol levels, blood pressure, risks of cancer.  It also has anti-bacterial properties.  Aside form polyphenols, red wine also has flavonoids which is also an anti-oxidant.  Wine can also be associated in reducing stress.  It has a calming influence that helps the body to relax and unwind.

Before buying your juice drink, be careful on reading the label.  There is difference between “100 % juice” and “made with real juice”.  There can be a big amount of artificial sweeteners and big amount of calories included in your juice drink.  Drinking real juice drink can give you the necessary nutrients and vitamins, while there re juice drink which is not different from drinking a glass of sugared water.

Whether it is diet or regular soda, soda still has no nutritional value.  Unfortunately, this unhealthy drink is the leading and most favorite beverage.  There are studies showing soda related to obesity.  Soda is known to be high in calories and sugar.  Even diet soda shows no significant difference in sugar and calories.  Both regular and diet sodas are associated to weight gain.

Drinking soda has also been related to tooth decay.  It is still attributed to high consumption of sugars which is present in all soda drinks.  Caffeine is also present in sodas.  So children who drink too much sodas can develop caffeine dependence.  This may interfere with the development of the brain of children.  Although, this is not yet proven, several medical researchers and health care professionals are expressing concern.

Unfortunately, there are more of unhealthy drinks than healthy drinks out there in the market.  More and more people are forgetting to focus on healthy drinking.  Yes, we try to be cautious with what we eat but we still neglect what we drink.  Then definitely, we will be missing our healthy mark.

So if you would like to create your own drinks minus the sugar and calories, then definitely go ahead.  There are health guides and magazines, even the internet, can help you concoct a savory but healthy drink without the risk factors.

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