Healthy Eating Can Start With The Holidays!

Bon Appetit......No better time than now to start revamping your recipe collection.

Let me paint you a picture of "yummy" ideas.

Many will declare that food without fat is bland and tastless, but , not so, if we spend a little time learning a few guidelines.

Know your fat facts...oils are pure fat, so skimp and use the best of your choices.
Those being olive and peanut oils. Don't pour the oil straight into the pan or dish, instead keep some in a spray bottle and just spritz the pan lightly.

When sauteing, use fruit juices, chicken or beef broth, or plain water instead of oil, these do a better job of bringing out the flavor of the food and you have eliminated the fat.

Re-think your meat choices...turkey instead of red meat is a marvelous switch for your health. Most any recipe that calls for red meat can be made with turkey without changing any other ingredient.

This is a real biggie...instead of making soups and sauces with egg yolk, heavy cream, etc., use instead pureed vegetables such as carrots, potatoes or cauliflower.

In a bisque soup, buttermilk is a wonderful substitution for heavy cream.
Buttermilk is actually equal to 1 percent low-fat milk in terms of fat content.

"Baked" goodies that you can feel good about eating.

One way is to bake with Stevia...the sweet herb, this takes some trial and error, so holiday cooking may not be the place to start with that.

But you can replace shortening and oils with fruit-based butters. These can be found with the cooking oils in most super markets or in a good health food store.

Applesauce, bananas, or canned pumpkin can also be used to replace some of the fat.
Start by cutting the amount of shortening in half and replacing it with the fruit substitute until you find a proportion that produces a taste you like.

When you get control of the basics, you can transform any food into a lean and delicious version of its former fat-laden self.

A Good Example...
(Best Brownies)

Use unsweetened cocoa instead of semisweet chocolate and pureed prunes instead of butter.
The prunes keep the brownies moist, and the overall fat content is about one fifth of a traditional brownie recipe. And by using a spritz bottle to spray your pan you will save even more fat grams.

The great truth is we don't have to give up the foods we love in order to eat, and be healthy...we just have to alter the way we prepare them.

Family food traditions usually come from an era when fat was the main ingredient....keep the tradition, but make a few simple changes and leave a healthier legacy....it would make any grandmother happy!

EatWell-BeWell
Bea Kunz
http://www.sagehillfarmsandvintagestore.com/