How to Cook Naturally

Many people know how to cook, but few know how to cook naturally. The trick to cooking naturally is get the flavor into the food without using artificial flavors and too much oil. The basis for natural cooking is to let the natural flavor of the food be retained and enhanced mildly. It is best to start out with the best ingredients you can find, and these days that means organic produce, chosen in its own season and at the peak of freshness. Cooking naturally means waiting until June for strawberries and forgoing asparagus in December. There is a time and a place for all flavors.

Always use an iron skillet or iron pot for your stove top cooking. It is indeed a natural source of iron. You will always have just the right level of iron in your system if you use iron cookware. If it is too heavy to use 100% iron cookware, then buy the lighter-weight combination iron and ceramic cookware sets that are so brightly colored and very popular.

Some basic principals for natural cooking are: broil don't fry, bake don't fry, and grill don't fry. Deep frying food is the number one way to take healthy food and make it unhealthy.

One easy way to cook naturally is to use an old stand-by, a slow cooker such as a Rival crock pot. Crock pots burst onto the culinary scene in the 1970's, fell out of favor, but are back with a vengeance as home cooks seek healthy and inexpensive methods of cooking for the family. A crock pot can turn a cheap cut of meat into a delicious entree. Save money and get healthy with a crockpot in your kitchen. The best ones have a removable crock for easy cleaning. Nothing smells better than a fresh crockpot of soup waiting for you when you return home from a long day at work.