Chicken

Holidays equate to delicious food, reckless eating, and of course, the inevitable weight gain. Even if you’ve been strictly following your diet, the holiday season is bound to rip your diet-plan to shreds. But the realization of having eaten “too much” sets in only post holiday, when you’re back at[.....]

Reheated leftovers can raise disease risk, especially when not cooked or stored right. Refrigerate potatoes right after cooking to prevent botulism and refrigerate chicken and eggs within 2 hours of cooking. Reheat them evenly and thoroughly at 165°F. While leftover oil must always be discarded, you can refrigerate cooked rice and mushrooms soon after cooking and preserve for a day.

Your shiny, spotless kitchen may not show it, but it is a hotbed for bacterial activity! Ensuring proper hygiene in the kitchen when cleaning, preparing, cooking, and storing food is critical in order to prevent food-borne illnesses including diarrhea, E coli, hepatitis A, gastroenteritis, and salmonella poisoning. Washing your hands, cleaning sponges and dishcloths, sanitizing kitchen surfaces and cutting boards, and knowing how to handle produce and raw meats are essential parts of kitchen hygiene.

Though chicken is considered healthier than red meat, broiler chicken is not. It has antibiotic-resistant bacteria like E. coli, which causes diarrhea and UTI. You may kill the bacteria by cooking chicken at 165 °F, but grilling or frying the chicken raises cancer risk. Eat roasted or stewed organic or free-range chicken, but not at the cost of fresh veggies and fruits.

Broiler chickens carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause food poisoning and cannot be killed by standard prescription antibiotics. The birds may also be given growth hormones for faster growth, which can affect your health. Buy free-range chickens or cook the broiler to 165 °F and store below 40 °F.

Except for the essential amino acid glutamine in it that may help with weight loss, bone broth doesn’t have many health benefits. But there are ways to make your broth bowl healthier, adding some meat to it being one. You can also have the broth before a meal so you feel satiated faster which will stop you from overindulging.

Eating chicken skin may be a little sinful but not all that bad. There is fat in it, but it is good unsaturated fat. Lowered blood pressure and cholesterol are perks of munching on crispy golden brown skin. Chicken skin has oleic acid too (like olive oil) that inhibits cardiac, inflammatory, and autoimmune diseases. It is not high in calories so removing it won’t help much in your calorie-cutting plans.

Reheating kills nutrition in food and alters compounds in food (certain proteins become fat). Repeated reheating assists growth of food poisoning bacteria. Rapidly store leftovers in airtight containers at temp below 0° F. Avoid reheating chicken, mushrooms, rice, beets, celery, potatoes and spinach. Ayurveda suggests eating food fresh and to avoid reheating.