5 simple strategies to cook quick and healthy meals

Lack of time shouldn't prevent you from eating well. The following tips will help you prepare quick and nutritious meals.

• That way, you can just rotate your weekly menus (along with the shopping list) every month or every two months.
• Thus, once you have, say, eight weeks of menus, you're set for the rest of the year.

• This handy standby provides plenty of vitamins and minerals, together with some protein from the milk, and fibre, if you choose a high-fibre cereal.
• More importantly, it could help the entire family to lose weight.
• In one study, people who ate a bowl of cereal instead of lunch or dinner consumed on average 640 calories less a day and lost an average of nearly two kilograms (four pounds) of fat in two weeks.
• Or make up a great big bowl of granola for the whole family, mixing cut-up fruit with low-fat granola cereal with or without nuts, fat-free plain yogurt and honey.

• A great "breakfast" option for dinner is an omelette.
• It's quick and easy to make, a good protein source and relatively low in calories.
• Fill it with veggies instead of cheese, and you have a complete meal in a frying pan.

• Panini are sandwiches grilled in a machine that looks like an oversized sandwich toaster and that presses all the ingredients together.
• Panini machines are widely available and turn an ordinary sandwich into a real treat.
• Keep whole-grain bread on hand at all times (bread freezes well).
• When you can't think of what to have for dinner, serving panini with various grilled veggies works beautifully.

• Although many kitchen appliances probably sit in a cupboard gathering dust, the grill may become the one appliance that occupies a permanent spot on your kitchen counter.
• This device allows you to barbecue inside your house.
• The health bonus: a drip pan catches the grease, reducing the fat content of cooked meat, which also makes it easier to clean.
• One of these grills gives you the convenience of low-fat barbecuing during the winter months, when it's too cold to barbecue outdoors.