Tips For Novice Cooks: Recipe Blog Nutrition And Stylized Food Photos

Most cookbooks, cooking shows, and blogs use professional stylized photos you should ignore. In most cases your version will not look like the photo or video. Even foods plated by a cooking shoe host are stylized to make them more appealing. It is legal, but deceptive. Courts allow stylized photos citing “reasonable consumers” know they do not represent the actual foods.

In addition to stylized food photos are nutrition facts that are too good to be true. All commercially prepared foods must have accurate nutrition information. The requirement does not apply to recipe blogs. Nutrition information that sounds too good to be true probably is.

In this video:

• Ignore stylized recipe photos. 00:33
• Recipe blog nutrition facts accuracy. 2:48

Tips For Novice Cooks: Testing For Doneness & Kitchen Thermometers

Prevent over baked cakes and muffins and accurate, affordable kitchen thermometers to assure foods are safe and cooked to perfection.

It takes only minutes for cakes and muffins to go from moist to dry. Recipes have a range of cooking times to try to account for measuring errors and oven temperatures. And yet, those ranges are a guide. A wood toothpick is all you need to assure moist cakes and muffins.

Kitchen thermometers not only prevent overcooked meat and poultry, they can prevent under and over cooking.

In this video:

• Test for doneness, do not guess. 00:32
• Kitchen thermometers. 2:49
• Allowing for carry over heat. 4:29

Tips For Novice Cooks: Recipe Ingredient Measurements & Temperature

Some recipes require more accurate ingredients measurements than others. For example, cakes, muffins, biscuits, pastries and pie crusts.

Most recipe blogs and cookbooks using measuring cups do not specify which type of cup to use; wet or dry. There are significant difference that can drastically affect a recipe.

Also, some cake recipes specify sifted ingredients and room temperature ingredients.

This video clarifies when to use room temperature ingredients, what room temperature means and how to accurately measure ingredients.

In this video:

• Why use room temperature ingredients? 00:30
• Accurately measuring ingredients. 2:15

Tips For Novice Cooks: Anatomy Of A Recipe

Many recipes promote failure instead of success. Recipe blogs now dominate the internet. Anyone can become an expert cook, nutritionist, diet expert, and food photographer. At least according to their blog.

Many recipe blogs provide more advertisements than useful information. Blogs that offer nutrition facts can provide erroneous or misleading information to make their recipe appear to be healthier than it actually is.

In this video:

• Anatomy of a recipe. 00:37
• Recipes are a guide. 1:38
• Beware of inaccurate statements and tips. 4:37

Tips For Novice Cooks Video Series

Prepared foods account for 60% of the American diet. The trend from home cooking to prepared foods has increased since the 1980’s. The results have been decreasing life expectancy and increasing heart disease and diabetes.

The problem is not eating prepared foods, but eating the wrong prepared foods. Comfort foods that are high in calories and sodium and low in most essential nutrients.

Many Americans pay for prepared foods (restaurant, fast foods, store bought) with credit not disposable cash.

Home cooked meals, despite misinformation from the food industry, saves thousands of dollars a year per person and healthier than prepared foods costing much more.

With home cooking, you can eat steak for less than the cost of a hamburger meal.

Fad Diet Pseudoscience

The “science”” many fad diets use to support their claimed health benefits is actually based on pseudoscience, like animal studies, not on rigorous clinically trials.

In this video:

• Marketing pseudoscience. 00:42
• Nutrition science is not exact. 2:43
• Why nutrition science is not exact. 4:30
• Nutrition science and clinical trials. 6:14

Cutting Calories Not Foods

Most overweight, but healthy people without food allergies or irritable bowel  and other gastrointestinal medical problems do not have to cut foods or food groups to lose excess weight. In most cases, the problem is not the food, but too many calories from highly process foods.

A person can cut hundreds of calories from your diet by replacing highly processed (prepared) foods with minimally processed foods.

In this video:

• Is your weight gain due to your diet? 00:31
• Eliminating foods is easy. 1:18
• Cutting calories not foods. 3:33
• Calorie cutting tips. 4:52

Is Your Diet Protein Abundant Or Deficient?

Most healthy adults get enough protein from their diet and do not need protein supplements. Too much protein has more health risks than benefits.

In this video:

• What is protein? 00:45
• Sources of dietary protein. 1:17
• Why most people do not need supplemental protein. 2:45
• Supplemental protein and excess calories. 5:13
• High protein diet risks. 8:48

Marketing Tricks: What The FDA Does And Does Not Approve

How some companies increase sales by implying FDA approval, certification, or registration and even use FDA logos. The lowest level is FDA certified. A process where a manufacturer claims their device is identical to an FDA approved device.

In this video:

• What is the FDA? 00:41
• What the FDA approves and does not approve. 1:32
• What is FDA registered? 4:03
• Checking For FDA Approved, Cleared, or Authorized Medical Devices 5:38

30 More Low Potassium Foods

30 foods providing 210 mg or less of potassium per serving for people needing to restrict potassium due to chronic kidney disease.

In this video:

• Why a low potassium diet? 00:30
• Nutrition label potassium daily value. 1:09
• 30 low potassium foods. 1:35

Garlic
Radishes
Paste, White, Cooked
Jalapeno Pepper
Endive, Raw
Scallions (Green Onions)
Onions
Apricots
Couscous, cooked
Figs
Plums
Milk Chocolate
Rapini (Broccoli Rabe)
Celery
Blueberries
Walnuts
Tangerine (Mandarin Orange)
Peaches
Green Bell Pepper
Turnips
Shrimp
Dark Chocolate
Spinach, Raw
Green Peas
Red Bell Pepper
Bulgur, dry
Peanuts, Roasted
Mustard Greens, Raw
Almonds
Peanut Butter

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