ealthy eating is not just about choosing the right foods and eating in moderation. It's also about having the right tools on hand to help you create healthy meals. Stocking your pantry with the building blocks of healthy recipes will help you infuse your meals with sophisticated flavors and wholesome ingredients without making you feel like you're missing out on fat and salt. Modifying your favorite recipes and testing out newer recipes that meet healthy guidelines for fat, saturated fat, fiber, and sodium can be daunting since, when you substitute or cut ingredients, you also run the risk of diminishing flavor and moisture. Therefore, I'd like to recommend some essential ingredients for your healthy pantry that will help you lose the fat and salt but keep the flavor in your food.

Olive oil
Fat is important in cooking because it helps impart a pleasurable taste and texture to our food and, in the case of oils, helps to magnify the flavors of food. In recent years, the field of nutrition has come to some significant understandings about fat that have impacted many of our pantries. What we've learned is that we should be eating an overall diet that is low in fat (20-30% of calories), with an emphasis on balancing out monounsaturated fats with polyunsaturated fats, especially omega-3 fats. This means that there should be a major shift away from butter and margarine in our cooking and a move toward olive oil. Olive oil is high in monounsaturated fats, of which we need more, and it has antioxidant activity. Populations who follow the Mediterranean diet, which uses olive oil as its primary fat, have lower rates of heart disease and cancer than populations that don't primarily use olive oil. People who switch to olive oil from other types of fats, like butter and margarine, also seem to be able to reduce their heart disease and cancer risk, as well as lower their blood pressure, cholesterol, and their risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis.

Choosing olive oil can get confusing with so many options on our shelves. I recommend organic extra virgin olive oils, like those from Napa Valley Naturals and Zoë Organic to ensure that your oils are free from pesticides and are environmentally friendly. Extra virgin olive oil comes from the first pressing of the olives and is considered the finest in quality and flavor. Olive oil can be used for all your cooking purposes except very high-heat frying, since the heat damages the fats. Additionally, you can use "light" olive oil for baking and in Asian cooking since it does not have an olive-y flavor. Store oils in a cool, dark place away from the stove or oven and buy them in the smallest quantity possible. If your oil smells rancid, fishy, or musty, don't use it - it's time for a new bottle.

Vinegar
Vinegar is an essential for any healthy kitchen, since it helps add flavor back when fat and salt are reduced. Vinegars are virtually calorie free and sodium free, but they add an amazing amount of flavor in just a spoonful. Good bets are those made from fruit: balsamic, red wine, white wine, sherry, champagne, and cider vinegars. I keep a variety on hand to create whimsical vinaigrettes for my salads. Some of my favorites include Monari Federzoni balsamic vinegar, and Alessi white balsamic raspberry blush vinegar. Rice vinegars from Nakano are very useful in Asian-inspired salads and marinades. For a simple vinaigrette, I use a ratio of 1.5:1 or 3 tablespoons vinegar: 2 tablespoons olive oil and 1/8 teaspoon each salt and pepper for a salad that serves four.

Broths
Vegetable and chicken broths are indispensable in a healthy kitchen. For just a few extra calories, they add more flavor than water and less fat than butter or oil. I know they tend to be high in sodium, but Health Valley makes excellent options that have good flavor and a modest amount of salt (and no MSG). You can also make your own, freeze it in small batches, and defrost as needed. Use broth to make soups, stews, marinades, sauces, and to cook grains, like quinoa and barley.

Parmesan cheese
Strongly flavored cheeses like Parmigiano-Reggiano are excellent flavor enhancers. A little cheese sprinkled on hot vegetables or pasta goes a long way towards enhancing the flavor of foods. Hard cheeses tend to be lower in fat than soft cheeses, and therefore have fewer calories. Remember to use small amounts of sharp cheddar, Pecorino-Romano, reduced-fat feta, and Chavrie goat cheese in recipes that call for lots of cheese or that could be enhanced by a sprinkling of flavorful cheese.

Garlic
Garlic is an indispensable seasoning used in cuisines around the world. It adds pizzazz to pastas, polish sausage, pico de gallo, and pot stickers. It may offer many health benefits, too, by lowering blood pressure and cholesterol and protecting against heart disease, strokes and certain cancers. Garlic should be stored in the pantry and, yes, you should buy the whole clove, not the jars of pre-processed garlic since, once cut, the health benefits only stick around for a few hours. Toss in minced garlic when you're just about done sautéing vegetables for soups and sauces (it only needs to cook about 30 seconds) and mix it into salad dressings and dips.

Beans
Keeping a variety of canned beans on hand is a useful way of adding fiber and protein to a variety of recipes. Many soups and salads can be transformed into one-dish meals by the addition of beans. Legumes are an excellent replacement for meat when you want to have a vegetarian meal, since they're very low in calories and fat and offer good quantities of protein, iron, calcium, B vitamins, and zinc. Canned beans do tend to be high in sodium, but you can remove 30-40% of the salt by rinsing and draining them. Most dry beans, with the exception of lentils, require a little more work since they need to be pre-soaked before cooking, but they store well and contain little to no salt.

Dried herbs and spices
Pantry seasonings are essential for adding ethnic flavors to your recipes without the hassle of washing and preparing them in their fresh form. Some herbs, however, are much more flavorful when fresh and have been shown to have high antioxidant activity. Those that are useful and acceptable in dry form are allspice, bay leaves, black pepper, chili pepper (in all varieties), cinnamon, cloves, curry, dill, ginger, Italian seasoning, mint, nutmeg, oregano, rosemary, sage, and thyme. Store them in a cool dry place and use your nose to test for freshness; if they have no scent, they no longer have flavor-it's time to replace them. Salt is still indispensable for bringing out the complexity of natural flavors in food. A little goes a long way, though, and the trick is to know that you should almost always add it at the end of cooking, unless you're seasoning meat, poultry or fish before cooking.

I could go on and on, especially since there are important refrigerated items that are staples of healthy cooking but are beyond the scope of this article. Nuts, especially walnuts, almonds, pecans, and pine nuts, add flavor, texture, protein, and healthy fats to many recipes, especially when lightly toasted first. Omega-3 fortified eggs from Eggland's Best and Healthy Horizons are extremely versatile and are always handy for making emergency meals. Fresh herbs add nutrients and dimension to recipes. Of course, there are other grain staples for the pantry that I didn't mention, but you know that whole-wheat pasta, brown, wild, and basmati rices, quinoa, and whole wheat and unbleached flours are all essential to have on hand. If your style of cooking is eclectic like mine, I think these staples are a good start towards stocking your healthy pantry.