HEALTH buffs always reach for healthy food. Unwittingly, the chosen healthy food had been made unhealthy through wrong preparation and cooking.

* Vegetables. No doubt these are healthy and the wisest choice for salad. Dressing it up with high fat vinaigrette makes it unhealthy.

With more and more information coming out about all the high-calorie salads in disguise, layering it with fat-free dressing is the best. Always look at nutritional panel on the regular version of dressing and you can clearly see just how much fat it contains.

Another problem are the low-fat varieties of salad dressing that are actually loaded with sugar, which spikes your insulin levels and will encourage the storage of body fat.

Many of the vitamins that are found in salads actually require dietary fat for absorption purposes, so adding a light amount of full-fat dressing with healthy fats is the better pick.

* Whole grains. Bagels are among the favorites. But loading it with cream cheese makes it unhealthy.

If you typically start your day off with a whole grain bagel, don't make the mistake of loading it up with cream cheese. Cream cheese offers very little in the way of protein; rather, it dishes up a high amount of saturated fat.

For a quick fix to this mistake, simply swap the cream cheese for natural peanut butter. Natural peanut butter contains more healthy fats, less sugar and is a far healthier way to start your day.

* Stir-fry. A quick stir-fry dinner is a great way to get in your daily vegetable requirement while also adding fiber and protein to the meal. There are two big mistakes when preparing the stir-fry - smother it with a prepackaged sauce and eating it with white rice.

White rice is definitely low in fat. However, it's also going to have a larger impact on your blood sugar level, which isn't something you want going into the evening hours. Instead, choose brown rice with your stir-fry or, even better, serve it with quinoa. This grain has a similar taste and texture to brown rice, but also contains a complete source of protein.

Then, be sure to prepare your own stir-fry sauce so you can control the ingredients that go into it and avoid any additional sugar.

* Condiments that can make you sick. The poison’s in the mix. Keep these mistakes in mind as you go about preparing your meals. A few small errors in the preparation process can quickly turn an otherwise healthy diet into one that's not going to promote fat loss at all. Always pay special attention to any sauces or condiments that get added, as this is commonly where the nutritional errors are found.