For years, doctors, nutritionists and even parents have told people that the key to getting more satisfaction from your food is to eat more slowly. Not only does this allow you to actually enjoy the flavors in your meal, but it was always said to give the brain time to recognize the fact that it was no longer hungry, which would in turn cause you to stop eating. Up until recently, there was no clinical evidence to support that decision.

Dr. Kathleen Melanson, of the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, changed all that by conducting a study on college age women to see how much different styles of eating affected their calorie intake. All the women were given a bowl of pasta with tomato and vegetable sauce after eating a 400-calorie breakfast and fasting for four hours. One group of women was given a large spoon and told to eat as quickly as possible, not pausing between bites. The other group was given a small spoon and told to pause in between each bite, setting down the spoon and chewing 15-20 times. The fast eaters ate 646 calories in 9 minutes, while the slower eaters ate only 579 calories in 29 minutes. The slower eaters also reported feeling fuller, longer.

Melanson estimates that eating slowly could reduce the number of calories a person eats by about 210 per day.

Slow cookers are one of the most useful appliances you can have in your kitchen, even more so if you don't enjoy cooking or you have a busy schedule that keeps you running around and not working over the stove. You can toss together a soup or meat dish in the morning in about five minutes and when you return from work in the evening, you'll have a hot, home cooked meal waiting for you. In addition, everything cooks together, which means that you'll only have one pot to clean. Some recipes will call for the meat (or even vegetables) to be browned before adding them in, but this is almost never really necessary.

Slow cookers cook foods for long periods of time at low temperatures. Modern slow cookers often have an automatic shutoff or a super-low "warm" setting that will protect both your food and your home when you are not around to watch, so they are safe to use any time, unlike the stove or the oven. They are ideal for cooking lean or inexpensive pieces of meat because they trap juice and steam as they cook the meat, allowing the meat to become moist and tender, preventing it from shrinking or toughening. The long, slow cooking process also allows flavors to meld and blend, making it an ideal way to cook soups and stews, too.