Saturday, June 25, 2011

How to Easily Create Healthy Eating Recipes From Your Old Favorites

By Suzanna Hardaway


There are plenty of recipes which can quickly be converted into substantially healthier variations without affecting the taste or texture of the food. For that reason no matter if you're on a healthy diet plan or using a special diet, by utilizing these methods you will be able to create a healthy eating recipe from almost any of your old family favorites.

1. Cut down the amount of fat, sugar and sodium in your recipes.

A good number of recipes are going to allow a decrease in the quantity of fat, sugar and salt in them without the need for forsaking taste. Simply by cutting the amount of fat and sugar you put into your recipe is going to help to cut the excess calories. Follow these basic suggestions in order to make the appropriate decision on precisely how much fat, sugar or sodium you could leave out of the recipes.

Fat: Use one half the fat that's called for in your recipe and replace the other fifty percent with unsweetened applesauce, mashed up banana or prune puree as an alternative. In case you wish you can employ commercially prepared fruit-based fat replacers as well.

Sugar: Once again, reduce the amount of sugar in your recipe by about 1/3 to 1/2 then add spices like allspice, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, or flavorings like vanilla extract or almond flavoring. That will assist to increase the sweetness of the food.

Sodium: This should be reduced by 1/2 in baked goods which don't require yeast. For any that do, you shouldn't lower the amount of sodium since it is important for the leavening process. If you omit the sodium from foods with yeast, they are going to wind up dense and fat. For many main dishes, you can cut down the amount of salt you have by half or remove it entirely.

Don't forget to take a look at the additional ingredients you use in cooking that could possibly contain sugar, fat and sodium. Begin reducing these also. When a recipe entails a cup full of grated cheddar cheese then just use 1/2 a cup in the future.

2. Make healthy substitutions.

By "healthy substitutions" we do not simply mean cutting down the quantity of sugar, fat or salt in the recipes but in addition evaluate ways of boosting their nutritional content. So if your recipe calls for whole wheat pasta, replace it by using enriched pasta (you will triple the quantity of fiber you're having as well as lowering the number of calories).

3. When you can, eliminate unhealthy ingredients altogether.

You will discover a few recipes in which you'll be able to delete ingredients entirely, like frosting, coconut or nuts, that are high in fat and calories. Additionally start to cut down your use of condiments (butter, olives, pickles, mayonnaise, syrup, jelly) since they include huge quantities of salt, sugar, excess fat and calories.

As you begin looking at your recipes using a much more critical eye and figure out what to modify and the best way to modify them, make notes on any kind of changes you make to ensure that you can refer to your notes the next time. Hopefully by following the few measures above you should be able to make more healthy eating recipes for your family in the future. You might discover yourself and your family members naturally shedding pounds without even officially going on a diet!




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