A nutrition expert and cardiologist shares 7 essential kitchen tools for eating healthy

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Cooking at home more frequently is one of the most significant lifestyle changes you can make for your health since you can control what goes into your food and how it's made.

As much as ingredients matter, so do the kitchen tools and appliances you use to make your meals. They can make cooking healthy dishes more convenient, more efficient, and even more fun. 

Since I'm no health and nutrition expert myself, I consulted someone who does have a lot of experience in those realms about what tools I could use to make healthier meals.

Dr. Steven Gundry is a cardiologist and heart surgeon, director of The International Heart and Lung Institute in Palm Springs, and author of "The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in "Healthy" Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain". Gundry says these are the essential kitchen items he uses to help him stay on track and make healthy foods and drinks.

Below, he explains why they're his kitchen mainstays and how he uses them. 

A salad spinner

Amazon

Nothing is worse than washing a head of lettuce or greens, then trying to blot the water with paper towels. A salad spinner lets you rinse, then spin all the water off completely. Plus, it's fun to use. It also lets you avoid buying bags of lettuce with questionable preservatives that keeps things "fresh" for a week or longer.

OXO Good Grips Salad Spinner, $29.95, available at Amazon

Also available at Target and Bed Bath and Beyond for $29.99

A modern pressure cooker

Williams-Sonoma

This device eliminates the fear of blowing off lids that old pressure cookers inspired. The beauty of these appliances is that they destroy the harmful lectins in certain foods that I profile in my book "The Plant Paradox." For a two-job working family, a pressure cooker gets a meal on the table in seven to 15 minutes, start to finish. No more picking up a pizza on the way home.

Instant Pot Duo Plus 60 9-in-1 Multi-Use Programmable Pressure Cooker (6-Qt.), $129.95, available at Amazon and Williams-Sonoma

Instant Pot Duo 60 7-in-1 Multi-Functional Pressure Cooker (6-Qt.), $99.95, available at Walmart

A high-speed blender

Amazon

Quite frankly, I don’t know how I could live without my Blendtec. We use it every morning to make a green smoothie, make mushroom soup (yes, it heats things up), make avocado chocolate mint ice cream — you name it. We have both the Blendtec and a Vitamix, but honestly, the Blendtec is our workhorse. 

Also available at Amazon for $310.47

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SEE ALSO: I tried a plant-based meal delivery service made for busy people who want to eat healthy in 2018