One of the easiest ways to save calories (and a few dollars) is to cook your own meals. Yet time constraints and work and family responsibilities often make eating at home a challenge. Investing in a few kitchen gadgets can help. With the right tools, you can simplify meal preparation, shorten cooking time, and enjoy healthier meals — all while inching closer to your weight loss goals.

Stout_Stuff_Private_Label_Kitchen_Gadgetry1 Here are a few ideas to get you started

 

steaming-vegetables-456_240x180Vegetable Steamer

Compared to frying and sautéing, steaming is one of the healthiest ways to cook when you want to lose weight and cut calories in recipes. From a simple saucepan insert to an electric steamer, this is a handy kitchen gadget. There are lots of affordable, user-friendly steamers on the market that allow you to cook vegetables, whole grains, and fish without any added oil or fat. You can even use stock or broth as the steaming liquid instead of water to impart more flavor.

 

pg-kitchen-gadgets-to-lose-weight-05-fullSlow Cooker

The other item that should be high on your list of convenient kitchen gadgets for weight loss is the crock pot, or slow cooker. This is a great kitchen gadget that allows you to put together all of your ingredients and, a few hours later, have a complete, cooked meal. They are great for making soups and stews and cooking whole grains and beans. This is another method that cooks food soft and moist making it easier to eat for Banded patients. It is also a great way to cut calories because you don’t need added fats.

 

Immersion Blenderpg-kitchen-gadgets-to-lose-weight-08-full

This is without a doubt one of the finest inventions for the kitchen ever. You can make fresh dressings in a snap and blend soups or stews, and the mini-chopper is great for things like small batches of pesto. This kitchen gadget’s whipping effect adds creaminess and volume without adding fats, so you can more easily reach a healthy weight.

 

OXO-Salad-Spinner-Inspired-TasteSalad Spinner

Salads are always a healthy choice for reaching a healthy weight. A salad spinner is a handy kitchen gadget that will spin-dry your salad greens. You can make your own fresh custom mix of greens at a fraction of the cost of buying ready mix greens at the super market. It saves money and easy to use. This time-saver makes it a lot more likely that you’ll put together a healthy salad. Salad dressings stick to dry greens better than those that are damp, so you’ll need less dressing and cut calories.

pg-kitchen-gadgets-to-lose-weight-06-fullOil Mister

It’s easy to overdo the amount of oil in a dish, and when it comes to maintaining a healthy weight, that’s a surefire diet-buster. A better way to add a healthy amount of oil to a meal and cut calories is with a handy kitchen gadget known as an oil mister. A spray oil mister can cut down your oil consumption by 80 percent. Oils are added calories that can be easily over eliminated. Instead of pouring oils or dressing onto your salads, try spraying them.

 

Lemon Squeezer and Citrus Zesterpg-kitchen-gadgets-to-lose-weight-03-full

Both a lemon squeezer and a citrus zester are kitchen gadgets that allow you to add the tangy, delicious flavors of citrus to your meals. With more flavor from limes, lemons, and oranges, you’ll be able to rely on using less on oil, butter, salt, and other additives for taste when trying to lose weight. That means you can have deliciously flavored meals and cut calories to.

 

pg-kitchen-gadgets-to-lose-weight-07-fullKitchen Scale

One of the biggest roadblocks to maintaining a healthy weight in America is portion control. A great kitchen gadget to get portion sizes right and cut calories is a kitchen scale. Being able to objectively measure out the food that you cook and eat can really help you gauge how many calories and

[how much] protein you’ll be eating throughout the day. Once you do it often enough, you can virtually eyeball the amount of food, especially when you are in a restaurant.

 

Smaller Dishespg-kitchen-gadgets-to-lose-weight-02-full

One of the best ways to cut calories and lose weight is to simply eat your meals on smaller dishes. Americans in general need to eat smaller portions. Using smaller plates, bowls, cups, and glasses can help you do just that and reach a healthy weight. When you use larger plates you are more likely to fill them up. Once it is on your plate, the compulsion to “clean your plate” is strong and harder to know when to stop eating. Smaller plates help you to start and finish with a portion perfect amount of food and will help you to recognize fullness sooner.