Everyone wants to cut down on the fat and sodium in their diet, but few people take the time to read up on good, healthy, simple and effective cooking tips and meal plan ideas. If you eat healthy, you cut down on fat and sodium levels. If you cook healthy, you cut down on sodium and fat. If you do both, your diet is much more beneficial. Here are a few simple tips that will help you prepare healthy, tasty meals.

Using a Paper Towel – Many cooking tips concentrate on using paper towels to wipe down surfaces when you cook. While this is a great thing and can help cut down on grease and mess, it is not enough. A better kitchen tip is to actually put your food into a brown paper bag or Tupperware bag instead of a paper towel. After you cook, simply use your brown sugar browning paper to dust your plates, silverware, and serving dishes. It only takes about 30 seconds and you’ll have a clean plate almost as clean as the day you cooked it. This is a much better option because the brown sugar browning adds a little bit of extra brown sugar goodness to your food, which helps make everything taste much better.

Salt and Pepperm – This seems like common sense, but many people don’t add enough salt and pepper. Both are essential in building great flavors. However, too much salt can be unappetizing and much more harmful than too little. To maximize your flavor, I generally use about one teaspoon of salt and a quarter of a teaspoon of pepper with every recipe. It may sound like a lot, but it’s nothing compared to the hundreds of health benefits you can receive from adding these two key ingredients.

Baking Soda – Another kitchen tip I’d like to give you is to use baking soda instead of salt. Baking soda works wonders for removing excess moisture from baked items and it also helps to reduce the burning sensation in your mouth that comes with using salt. Baking soda doesn’t really have a bad taste, so you can experiment with using it in other recipes as well. It may even become your new favorite ingredient!

Garlic and Herbs – With fresh herbs and garlic becoming more readily available, cooking with these natural elements is becoming a great alternative to using salt and pepper. I usually opt for organic garlic and basil in my recipes, but feel free to experiment. Both work great together. If you grow your own herbs, be sure to pick them at their peak flavor. This will give your baked goods a unique flavor that you can’t find in stores.

The bottom line is that there are many great cooking tips out there. I just need more time to perfect my techniques. The important thing is to try things and find out what makes your dish taste better. Don’t let cooking tips to keep you from having a great meal.