Home Cooking Provides More Variety And Essential Nutrients

Most nutrient deficiencies are caused by a diet of highly processed foods. Healthy home cooked meals can provide more variety and essential nutrients for less calories than prepared foods.

In this video:

• Prepared versus homemade foods. 00:41
• From natural foods to processed foods. 1:38
• Why home cooking increases variety and essential nutrients. 2:30

Tips For Novice Cooks: Fresh Versus Processed Ingredients

Why fresh ingredients may not always be the best value or healthiest choice when it comes to home cooking and baking.

In this video:

• Fresh ingredients. 00:45
• Frozen ingredients. 2:40
• Canned ingredients. 3:26
• Is fresh, frozen, or canned best? 4:16

Tips For Novice Cooks: Sugar

Overview of granulated sugars available to consumers for home cooking and baking.

In this video:

• Natural versus added sugars. 00:35
• Types of sugar. 00:50
• Measuring sugars. 1:36
• Storing sugar. 2:14

Tips For Novice Cooks: Flour: Wheat & Gluten-Free

Overview of consumer flours with and without gluten used for cooking and baking including shelf-life and storage.

In this video:

• Wheat versus gluten-free flour. 00:34
• Types of wheat flour. 1:34
• Storing flour. 3:19

Tips For Novice Cooks: Herbs, Spices, & Extracts

Herbs, spices, and flavorings should be selected based on your tastes and budget, not on the advice of internet influencers or popular cooking show hosts.

In this video:

• Fresh versus dried herbs. 00:39
• Ground versus whole spices? 2:30
• Use or best by dates. 3:55
• Natural and artificial extracts. 4:41

Tips For Novice Cooks: Butter: Salted Or Unsalted

Most cooking shows recommend using unsalted butter. Many commercially prepared unsalted butters have natural flavors. Natural flavors are synthetic chemical additives. Many premium unsalted butters do not added chemical flavors.

This video shares the differences between salted and unsalted butter and why using unsalted butter is not the best way to control the amount of salt and sodium in your diet.

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.

Induction Cooking Facts & Myths

This video shares some advantages, disadvantages, facts and myths about home cooking using induction versus gas and radiant electric stoves. While induction cooking is more energy efficient, the initial cost is higher and it requires magnetic iron or steel cookware. Aluminum cookware is not compatible with induction unless it has a steel bottom plate.

In this video:

• What is induction cooking? 00:34
• Induction cooking advantages. 1:25
• Induction cooking disadvantages. 2:49
• Induction facts and myths. 5:50

Measuring Cup & Spoon Accuracy

Several viewers have commented about making  a recipe with disappointing results.

Unlike most countries where dry ingredients are measured by weight in grams, US recipes use volume (cups). Commercial cooks and bakers rely on weight for accurate, consistent results. US home cooks are stuck with cups and spoons. The assumption is all measuring cups and spoons, regardless of price, are accurate. My research showed two apparently identical measuring cups where off by more than 10%.

This video shares how to check the accuracy of your measuring cups and spoon. To do so, you’ll need an accurate digital kitchen scale. There are many affordable kitchen scales accurate to within +/- 1 gram.

In this video:

• Why accurate measurements are important. 00:35
• Dry measuring cup accuracy. 1:12
• Wet measuring cup accuracy. 4:06
• Measuring spoon accuracy. 5:12

Cooking And Baking By Weight Versus Volume

American home cooks measure recipe ingredients by volume (cups, spoons) versus weight (ounces, pounds). This is partly due to the U.S. being the only country using imperial units of measure instead of metric. American restaurants and bakers use weight.

Some old home cooked recipes used weight like the pound cake. The recipe called for one pound each of eggs, flour and sugar. Of course, to cook using weights instead of cups requires owning an accurate kitchen scale. Most kitchen scales are now digital instead of analog and can display units in ounces or grams.

For many recipes measuring using cups works fine. But, in some cases, using weights is more accurate and contestant. Measuring a cup of chopped broccoli is not as accurate as weighing 160 grams (5.6 oz) of broccoli. The same with measuring pasta using cups.

This video shares some advantages of measuring ingredients by weight instead of volume (cups) for more consistent results especially making cakes, muffins, pancakes, and biscuits.

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