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If you’re genuinely attempting to lose a bit of weight, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to cook at home as opposed to eating out at bistros. As you won’t be dished up such huge portions you won’t consume as much, and what’s even better, you’ll be able to cut back on the amount of fats you eat by cooking light recipes.

Cooking light certainly doesn’t mean that you have to eat broccoli and lettuce for every meal. Above all, cooking light means making a few small substitutions and being attentive to exactly what goes into your meals. Switching from butter to low-cholesterol margarine is a great step, as is preparing your meat and vegetables in non-stick pans in order to avoid cooking with oil. Fried foods, one of the principals of restaurant meals, should be completely removed from your menu if you’re cooking light. Roasting or baking succulent chicken, potatoes, or vegetables can give you the same great taste and consistency of fried foods, but without the colossal amount of extra fat that heating in oil gives you.

Furthermore, when you endeavor to start off cooking light, try cooking with as many vegetables as possible. Veggies give you great minerals and vitamins and are unpredictably filling, especially given their low levels of fats and calories. Cooking at home also helps you limit the amounts of salt in your diet since you’re in control of what goes into your food and what stays out.

The Principles of Light Cooking

Learning to cook healthy light food can be more difficult for the experienced cook, who must change techniques and approaches, than for the beginner. In fact the principles of light cooking are very simple:

Include fresh, seasonal produce in every meal. Vegetables and fruits are the key to healthy cooking. The focus of this diet is largely plant-based. Today's supermarkets and farmers' markets are stocked with an impressive array of produce, and if that's the focus of your diet, shopping becomes very exciting. What's in season? What looks good? I often plan meals for an entire week around a particularly good-looking pile of fresh green beans or asparagus or tomatoes that I've purchased at the farmers market. As good as all vegetables in a well-stocked supermarket might be, there is nothing better than produce freshly picked. Worlds of flavor will open up to you as you discover the flavor of a really sweet pea, a vine-ripened tomato, a peach harvested less than a day ago. You'll also become aware of the seasonality of things; it's a thrill when the first cherries come in in May, or the Blue-Lake beans appear in the markets in the spring, and sweet corn in the summer. It's difficult to think of cooking as a chore when you have the thrill of eating this seasonal produce to look forward to. I am not saying here that an entire meal must be based on vegetables, all of which require preparation. But one fresh vegetable added to a pasta, even if it is made with prepared tomato sauce, will greatly increase the nutritional value -- and the satisfaction -- of your meal.

Focus on animal protein that is low in saturated fat. This means fish, poultry, rabbit (popular in Europe but not so well thought of here). Some cuts of pork, too, are relatively low in saturated fat. Beef and lamb are high-fat meats, but they are being bred leaner. My focus, though, is on fish and poultry. Remove the skin from poultry, and if possible buy free-range chicken, as it is less fatty than battery chicken and has not been shot up with hormones and antibiotics.

Use nonfat yogurt, nonfat cottage cheese, and 1% or nonfat milk. Prefer 1%, nonfat being a bit watery.

Cheeses: I do not recommend using nonfat cheese. This is manufactured stuff, and has a rubbery texture and no flavor to speak of. Rather, use high-flavor cheeses like Parmesan, feta, and goat cheese, in moderate amounts.

Use mono-unsaturated oils like olive oil and canola oil. And use them sparingly. Do not be an ascetic cook, because you have not to keep fats down to a teaspoon-size minimum for a recipe to be healthy. But generally, in a cooked dish try to use no more than 1 to 2 tablespoons for 4 to 6 people. For salad dressings you will have the choice of substituting nonfat yogurt or low-fat buttermilk for some of the oil. But think that a tablespoon of oil per person on a green salad is not unhealthy: a green salad is a very low-calorie dish, and an oil-based dressing does not increase its caloric bulk unduly, although it does increase the fat content.

One dish can constitute a healthy, substantial meal. It can be a main dish soup or salad, a stew, tacos, a stir-fry or a pasta, as long as there is variety and at least one fresh ingredient. Usually complement hot one-dish meals with a green salad, which is easily thrown together and gives you the crunch of lettuce or other raw vegetables that it is a good idea crave at almost every meal.

Do not underseason. One of the reasons that "light" cooking sometimes has a reputation of being bland cooking is that too often it is bland. That's because cook's have become afraid of salt. Salt is essential, both for bringing out the flavors of foods and for bringing flavors into balance. Food shouldn't have so much salt that it tastes "salty," but it should have enough so that it tastes GOOD. Garlic, pepper, fresh herbs and dried, lemon juice and peel, are all important when it comes to seasoning. Low-fat food can have big flavors if you understand how to use them and bring them out.

Keep your pantry and refrigerator stocked with the enough ingredients, so that good, healthy meals can be quickly thrown together.