Cooking Without Oil

Host: A way that you cook can actually help you stay in shape, Better’s fitness expert Andrea Metcash shows us one way in today’s Getting Fit. Andrea: I know I’m always talking about fitness but today I’m talking about food. I discovered a product 360 cookware that not only gives you more nutrients but you’re going to save calories because there’s no fat, no water and I have with me Stephanie Aline. Tell us about this, you’re the master chef cookbook writer, tell me about this product. Stephanie: This is a really amazing product, this is a way that you can cook without using like you said any fats or any extra liquid at all. The food is cooking in its own natural moisture. You just put in, this is just plain, there is not even any salt on this. It’s not going to stick, it’s going to come up in a matter of minutes, I’m going to turn it over, I’m going to put the lid on and it’s going to retain all the nutrients and all the moisture. The benefit to cooking vegetables this way is again, that it retains the nutrients but it also retains the flavor and the color. I think a lot of times, people have problems with vegetables because they get too mushy, the color changes, they get- Andrea: And you lose all those nutrients in the water when you’re actually cooking broccoli and you know the water is always all green and now you don’t even have to add that extra water to it so but you were telling me earlier we were talking about cooking about the seal that we need to work on, what is that. Stephanie: It’s important you achieve what we call the vapor seal and that happens once the moisture is released from the foods, it’s going to gather in here, it creates sort of the self basting convection cooking action and then the moisture will gather around the edge and what happens is you’re going to create a vapor seal which locks everything in. so nothing can escape, none of the flavors and none of the nutrients and the same is true also vegetables as it is with chicken, as it does with fish- Andrea: Pot meals which is what I really love because I love my soups and I like for people to eat light and healthy. Tell us what’s in here. Stephanie: This is what of my favorite ways to use this cookware. I’ve layered a bunch of really flavorful ingredients. My favorite brand of fresh salsa is in here, you can use homemade, you can use whatever brand you like. There’s a can of Winston dried black beans, some corn that I cut off the cob, some fresh spinach but there’s no fat in there at all and it’s super quick. This is for about 10 minutes from beginning to end and- Andrea: She even made us something fun. Cheesecake. Stephanie: On the stove top, this is actually a low fat cheesecake. I used low fat yogurt, low fat ricotta cheese and some low fat cream cheese. Andrea: And I do want you to know if you do exercise and eat right, then you can share these low fat desserts and this is the 360 cookware. It’s a unique system of cooking that you don’t have to spray the pans. You don’t have to lose all the good nutrients from boiling out your vegetables and you can cook meals in one pan. Save your time and then you get time to go out and exercise. I’m going to taste this now, this is what I’ve been dying for. That’s really good. Host: And if you’ve got questions for Andréa, you can always email her at askandrea@bettertv.com.