Always use pure ingredients regardless of what you cook or whom you cook for. Ingredients define the character of the dish, and play a crucial role in determining the outcome. Has it ever happened to you that despite using innovative cooking techniques the end result seemed disappointing? The secret to great cooking lies in the ingredients that you choose. While pure ingredients can create a culinary wonder, any compromise can simply spell disaster.

Ingredients form the crux of any preparation. To this effect, their purity and quality not just impact flavor and taste, but also health.

Why Is It Important to Select Pure Ingredients?

Several reasons justify prioritizing ingredients meant to be used while cooking. Choosing pure ingredients ensures –

Optimal nutrition

Given the health-conscious mind-set of contemporary customers, food should be packed with nutrients. This is possible only when you use fresh, high-quality and pure ingredients. The very purpose of food is to provide energy, and well-chosen ingredients render you energetic by enhancing overall health and well-being.

So, regardless of whether you buy fruits, vegetables, spices, meat or poultry, check for authenticity. Bear in mind that purity and nutrition go hand-in-hand, and higher purity lead to wholesome preparations.

Better taste

When you combine authentic and pure ingredients with innovative cooking methods, the outcome is bound to be exceptional. By itself, an ingredient alone can influence the taste of the dish. Hence, if you aim to create a flavorful and enticing preparations, pick ingredients that are genuine and freshly sourced.

Certain ingredients like spices emanate a strong aroma if chosen well. As a result, using pure spices for cooking would release pleasant and exotic aromas that can awaken the senses and stir up an appetite.

Safety

Suffering from a food-borne disease can never be a pleasant experience. Unfortunately, ingredients are more than capable of causing discomfort, especially if not selected with care. Practice caution while shopping for ingredients to avoid such a situation. Purity ensures safety, which in turn proves to be good value for money, health and well-being in the long run.

It is never a good idea to put your family’s health at risk just to save a few pennies, or to experiment with a dubious brand of spice or breading mix. On the other hand, checking the fine print and making an informed decision can go a long way in keeping your family safe.

Identifying Pure Ingredients – Tips and Tricks

Shopping for pure ingredients may seem intimidating at first, unless you know how to go about it. Being aware of simple guidelines can ease the task for you to a great extent. Listed as follows are pointers that you can follow to fill your shopping basket with pure ingredients –

• Note down how you would want the outcome to be in terms of texture, flavor, aroma and visuals. The ingredients you pick must provide the desired taste, release delectable aromas and look appetizing.
• Next, your priority should be to identify a supplier that provides authentic and pure ingredients. Considering that not all suppliers are born equal, the onus is on you to test various suppliers till you pinpoint one that delivers on the promise of purity and authenticity.
• Ensure that the supplier in question meets all regulatory standards and possesses the necessary authorizations. They must have the seal of approval issued by the governing bodies in the food industry.
• Initially purchase a small batch of ingredients and check if they live up to your expectations. Try them out to find out if they are as genuine as claimed and deliver high-quality results.
• Only when you are totally satisfied on all fronts should you shop regularly and even in bulk quantities if required.

Some benchmarks that enable pure ingredients to stand out pertain to –

Inherent character

In case of culinary products, character implies flavor and texture. To some extent, it can also include appearance, particularly if the dish is color sensitive, for example curry. Natural ingredients provide an authentic flavor along with the desired texture. They also lend a visual appeal which exudes warmth and stimulates the senses.

Health

Pure ingredients take pride in being natural and free from artificial colors or flavors. Therefore, they are not just satisfying but also healthier.

Presence of additives and preservatives in any ingredient is a definite red flag. Usually, these take the form of MSG, salt, artificial sugars and so on. Given their adverse impact on long-term health, try to steer clear of them. Rather opt for spices, powders and breading mix with pure ingredients that would safeguard both health and weight.

Safe for use

For an ingredient to be safe for use, it should be free of harmful contaminants. Purity also implies absence of adulteration of any kind, thus ensuring that the outcome is genuine and healthy. Food that is prepared from pure ingredients is safe for consumption and hence fosters trust and joy.

Certifications

On checking the package of a pure ingredient, you are likely to come across various stamps and seals. These indicate that the content of the package has been cleared by the regulatory authorities and has passed all the benchmarks. As far as possible, buy ingredients that have certified and approved by the authorities in question. A certified product can be trusted in terms of health, nutrition and taste. Hence, you must include it in your shopping cart without any hesitation.

Eco-friendly

Can you trace the ingredient to its original source? If yes, then pat yourself on the back for having successfully identified a pure ingredient. Tracing the product back to its source implies transparency in terms of origin, manufacturing and processing.

For example, if you are able to trace a spice, such as cinnamon, back to its source, it would help to determine its purity. As a rule, spices tend to be pure if sourced from spice farms and spice gardens as opposed to an urban factory setting.

Common Pitfalls that Impact Ingredient Shopping

Despite their importance, there are people who take cooking ingredients for granted. They tend to pick up just any brand off the shelf, without paying attention to the characteristics. It is hardly surprising, therefore, when their culinary creations turn out to be less than ‘delights’, or worrisome health issues crop up in form of allergies, rashes, aches and so on.

Whatever you cook with is bound to have an impact on health. Given this fact, you can take the following steps to ensure that your shopping meets the basic criteria and standards –

Do not treat price as the only criteria

Pure ingredients may not be the cheapest, but this also means that they will be free from artificial agents. As far as price is concerned, you can omit the cheapest as also the most expensive. Instead settle for a product which lies in the mid-range of the price ladder and ticks all the boxes.

Select a vendor after thorough research

While it might be really tempting to settle for the vendor who is located in the closest proximity, keep yourself open to other options. Research plays a key role at this point, as it may reveal that your nearest vendor may not be as reliable as you think. Take your time to check the products in terms of quality, supply and availability, and select a vendor who offers pure and safe ingredients at optimal prices.

Try out the product

One of the best ways of sifting the diamonds from the stones entails checking each one personally. The same rule applies to cooking ingredients. Unless you personally use them, there is no way of determining the purity. That being said, experimenting with various products would leave you with a good idea as to how each one impacts your cooking. At the end of the exercise, picking a pure ingredient would be lot easier.

Read all the print on the package

This is one of the most common mistakes that buyers make, only to deal with unpleasant surprises later. Although it might mean dedicating a few minutes of your time to read all the fine print, the knowledge is well worth the time spent. Regardless of the external research that you might have conducted, the information mentioned on the package is literally a shout-out of the contents within. Simply going through would provide you with sufficient heads-up as to whether the product is for you. More importantly, it would give a fair idea as to whether it would prove to be good value for money.

Final Thoughts

Ingredients support your cooking the way your backbone supports the human body. Just as a healthy and well-rested backbone supports the body for many long years, pure ingredients support your cooking activities and benefit everyone including yourself. Given their importance it is but natural to conclude that there should not be any compromise in terms of nutrition or purity.

When it comes to choosing between being safe and being sorry, it is always the first. All you need to do to be safe is pay attention to the ingredients that you purchase, and you will never have to be sorry.