Holidays, birthday parties, or simply chilling with friends and families during the weekends are always best spent outdoors. It allows you to not only feel the vibrant ambiance of the environment but also have quality time with your peers.
Relationships bloom when there is food, and what better way to enjoy building relationships than in the outdoors with some good grilled barbecue on your plates. Grilled food has always been the staple for outdoor picnic adventures with the family or friends.
The hype that grilling food gets begs the question: why is this so? The food tastes better when grilled, but is there a subliminal caveat to grilling your food than other conventional methods? Is there more to what is grilling used for than just good smokey-tasting food?
It is what we will be sharing with you today. And to have a better perspective on the matter, we must see both ends of the spectrum. What are the advantages and disadvantages of grilling food? Let us dive right in to know more.
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Advantages of Grilling
Grilling your food can bring many advantages. Here are some worth considering:
The grilling process excites your senses.
Grilling is not just a cooking method. It is an experiential activity that stimulates the senses. The final output of the food is not the only thing you will enjoy eating but even producing it.
All your five senses: sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste will be feasting over whatever it is you have set on the barbeque.
Be it burgers, pork chops, chicken, or veggies. Here is how grilling stimulates your senses:
- Sight – Seeing the grill marks on your food and the juice oozing out of them is a winner. By grilling your food, you get to estimate how you want it served and how you want it to look like after.
- Smell – One factor that influences our sense of taste is the smell. That smoky, delicious aroma barbeque emanates is when the meat juice starts dripping and evaporates along with the smoke. This familiar aroma makes you more excited to dig into your food.
- Hearing – Aside from the smell, how the food sizzles is a very enticing experience.
- Touch – Nothing beats a crunchy on the outside, juicy on the inside type of barbeque.
- Taste – The highlight of the experience is the taste. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What is the point of stimulating your other senses if you do not get to taste what you grilled, right? Regardless, we are sure that grilled food will always taste better than those that are not.
Grilling is healthy and nutritious.
Remember that the food is suspended over the barbeque grill as you cook it. It is a healthier choice than other cooking methods like frying because the cooking grates of grills allow the fat to shed off while you cook.
It reduces the fat you will consume. Aside from this, only a small out of fat will be used in the process simply just to get the cooking started.
For people aiming to reduce their calorie intake, grilling is a great solution. Through this process, nutrients like riboflavin and thiamine remain intact. These nutrients are essential in bodily growth and development and carbohydrate breakdown for energy production.
Grilling vegetables also maintain their inherent nutrients compared to other methods of cooking. The above are reasons that answer the age-old question, “why is grilling healthy?”
Grilling promotes outside hangouts.
You would not appreciate grilling if you do it inside your house and have the place covered in smoke. That is precisely the reason why barbeque seasons take place outdoors.
And aside from the health and senses-related benefits grilling provides, who would have thought that it plays a role in promoting sociological relationships as well?
When you are outside, it influences your mind to be off the phone and spend your time hanging out with your peers instead.
Teens and youngsters can play frisbee or kick some balls around. While for the adults, nothing beats an excellent friendly talk over a grilled burger and cold beer.
Disadvantages of Grilling
Though there are advantages to the grilling method of cooking, it has its downsides as well. And the following might surprise you. Below are the disadvantages of grilling:
It requires a certain level of proficiency.
Grilling is more than just the process of cooking. But it is an art and a skill. Having the eyes and the nose to identify what is good grilled food requires practice.
Some people can cook barbecue with their eyes closed, but a greenhorn might still not produce an excellent grilled meal even with constant focus.
Also, grilling requires the skill on how to do it. Believe it or not, there is a science behind it. One must never make the mistake of focusing on aesthetics without understanding its underlying effects.
Sure, grill marks look good but overdoing it may cause health concerns. Burnt and overly charred food contains carcinogens that are bad for your health. Aside from this, burned food does not taste as good!
If you want to attain the perfect level of crisp and juiciness along with that aesthetic look, ask your barbecue master buddy for help, and you will get the hang of it.
It can cause fire hazards
Not knowing what fuel to use on how much fire to produce can cause you harm and even to your constituents. Various cases of fires due to unsupervised grills have happened in the past.
It is something you must consider when having barbecue parties.
The disadvantages are merely apparent when a certain level of skill for grilling is lacking. Nevertheless, with constant practice and familiarization, you will get there. You will be able to grill food like a pro soon enough.
Conclusion
All in all, the benefits of grilling outweigh the disadvantages. One needs a few bits of help from barbecue experts, and you are all set to do it on your own.
Grilled foods are always a great idea not only for outdoor social gatherings but even for your self and for your health.
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