CHAPTER 8

The New Abs Diet Guide to Healthy Grilling

THE IDEA OF GRILLING always sounds great: the open air, the sizzle of

flame on flesh, the aroma of smoky meat setting everyone's stomach

rumbling. The reality, however, is often less than the fantasy, because

many family grill-tenders have only two ways of cooking—raw and

burnt.

Well, from here on, burgers as hard as hockey pucks, charred

chicken that's still raw inside, and steaks that your rottweiler would have

trouble chewing are things of the past. This chapter is designed to

introduce you to the many subtleties of grilled food, while quickly and

efficiently making you master of the open flame (and, hopefully, giving

you enough great tastes and ideas to wean you off that bottle of sugary,

calorie-laden commercial barbecue sauce).

Grilling can be a healthful way of cooking because the grates allow

much of the saturated fat in meat to drip away. Grilling encourages you

and your family to eat more vegetables and fruit because caramelization

imparts sweet, smoky flavors that turn mundane vegetables into exotic

side dishes. And outdoor cooking delivers social benefits, too: Grilling

brings friends and family together. With the tips and innovative recipes

in this chapter, you'll be eager to move beyond the basics and develop a

mastery of open-flame cooking outdoors that you'll want to share. You'll

also discover how you can customize your grillwork for whatever health

goal you're looking to achieve, and you'll easily overcome the “I'm too

busy to cook” conundrum that keeps so many of us held hostage to the

fry-cooks and grease purveyors at America's fast-food restaurants.