 |
| Does your plate look like MyPlate? |
1. To Cut Calories, Cut Portions
I took the standard Libby’s Pumpkin Pie recipe and substituted Sucralose (Splenda) for the sugar, egg substitute for the eggs, a lower fat crust, and non-fat evaporated milk instead of the regular. It saved a meager 40 calories per serving. But take the original pie recipe and cut the pie into 12 pieces instead of 8 (still a decent piece of pie) and calories drop from 303 to 202 saving you 100 calories and the trouble of buying Splenda and egg substitute.
2. Healthy Ingredients Equals Healthy Food
It’s pretty simple: if your food has healthy ingredients, it’s healthy. Do you make food that has a lot of butter, meat, and refined flour and grains? Or does your food have more whole grains, beans, vegetables, and healthier oils? Look at your food after you make it or plate it: does it look like the MyPlate portions? If not, what changes could you make so that it looks more balanced?
3. Make a Difference With Small Changes
If you change the ingredients too much, it ceases to be the original food. Pumpkin pie still needs a sweetened filling and a crust to be pumpkin pie and meatloaf still needs lots of meat to be meatloaf. However, you CAN make small changes (that you probably won’t even notice) that make your recipes healthier. You can add nearly 2 cups of mashed beans or chopped vegetables to a pound of ground beef and still make patties, meatloaf, or meatballs. You can cut the sugar in recipes by a quarter to a third. You can cut the fat in recipes by 25% or try substituting with fruit puree. You can usually substitute up to half the flour in a recipe with whole wheat flour and you can experiment with different kinds of whole grains or pasta instead of white pasta or rice. Leave additional salt out of recipes, use more herbs, and taste before seasoning. For the most part, these changes won’t drastically improve the nutritional value of a single food or meal. However, if you consistently make small improvements to all your meals, you probably will substantially improve your diet while preserving the recipes you are already making.
4. Recipe Authors Want to Sell Their Recipes, Too
One of the attendees asked if ‘Hungry Girl’ recipes were good. I had no idea who she was talking about, but she kindly filled me in and we looked up the glitzy website. The recipe we looked at was a low-cal version of cream puffs or something like that. I’m sure it had a lot less calories than the ones you buy in the store, but it was made with coolwhip, purchased dough, and packaged jell-o and pudding; not exactly powerhouse foods. We also looked at recipes from Cooking Light and Eating Well. Although these sites (and many others) have some truly healthy recipes, they also have some that may be ‘healthy’ because of tiny portions or when compared to original versions. Make sure you evaluate the ingredients, the number of servings, and the nutrition information before you decide whether it’s healthy or not.
5. Allow Yourself to Evolve
Years ago I found an amazing peanut butter cookie recipe. The cookies were buttery, peanut buttery, and they melted in your mouth after an initially crispy, crumbly bite. As I became savvier about eating and nutrition, I experimented with other recipes that had more healthful ingredients. There are millions of cookie recipes: do I really need to make the one that literally has cups of Crisco and peanut butter in them? There are perfectly tasty cookie recipes that have oatmeal, whole wheat flour, dried fruits, nuts, pumpkin, and other healthier ingredients. Food and tradition are undoubtedly intertwined, but don’t be afraid to try something new – you may find something that you (and others) like better and is more healthful. That peanut butter cookie recipe eventually made its way to the trash, but I don’t miss it one bit.
