Healthy Cooking

Photo: flickr user Whatsername?

Preparation

Eating healthy in today's world does not mean avoiding your favorite recipes. Often some simple food substitutions can change a high fat dish into a healthy one. By experimenting with your recipes you can reduce the fat and calorie level and reduce your risks for heart disease, obesity, and some forms of cancer.

GROUND BEEF: Try ground lean turkey (no skin added), extra lean ground beef.

SHORT RIBS OR SPARE RIBS: Beef, lamb, veal or pork loin (fat trimmed: select or choice grade)

CHICKEN OR TURKEY PARTS: Chicken or turkey without the skin.

CHUCK OR SHELL STEAK: Flank steak, round steak, or sirloin steak (fat trimmed: select or choice grade)

BACON: Lean Canadian bacon or ham (fat trimmed)

WHOLE MILK: Skim or 1/2%% milk, low fat buttermilk, low-fat evaporated milk, nonfat dry milk.

CREAM: Low-fat evaporated milk (skim milk evaporated milk).

WHOLE MILK CHEESE: Part-skim Ricotta or Mozzarella, sapsago or low-fat cottage, farmer, hoop, or pot cheese, "lite" cream cheese, or "lite" American cheese.

SOUR CREAM: Low-fat or nonfat yogurt, "lite" sour cream.

ICE CREAM: Ice milk, low-fat or nonfat frozen yogurt.

EGGS: Egg whites, Cholesterol free egg substitutes.

BUTTER, LARD, BACON FAT: butter or shortening made from unsaturated fats (such as corn, safflower, sunflower, canola, or soybean); 7/8 cup oil for 1 cup of butter.

MAYONNAISE: Low-fat or nonfat yogurt; "lite" mayonnaise.

CHOCOLATE, 1 OUNCE: 3 tablespoons cocoa plus 1 tablespoon butter.

1. Trim meat of all visible fat.

2. Roast or broil on a rack so fat can drain off.

3. Brown meats and poultry; then pour off fat before continuing to cook in pan.

4. Baste meats in corn oil rather than meat drippings.

5. Make pot roast, soups, and stews a day ahead. Chill and remove congealed fat before reheating.

6. Try a fat separating measuring cup to remove fat when serving gravies and meat juices.

7. Remove the skin from poultry before cooking.

8. When sauteing, use nonstick cookware or spray coatings or nonfat broth or wine.

9. Reduce fat in baking up to 1/4 except in cakes.

10. Use "fruit only" jams instead of butter, butter, regular jellies and jams as a spread on bread, muffins, etc.

11. Read labels and select those products that contain no more than 3 grams of fat for every 100 calories to keep your fat intake to below 30%% of total calories.

12. Go easy on commercial bakery products. 50%% of their calories can come from fat.

13. When eating out, order butter, sauces, dressings or sour cream "on the side" so you can control how much, if any, you use.

14. Use mustard instead of mayonnaise on sandwiches.

1. Read labels. The first ingredient is the most abundant in the product. If that word ends in "ose" such as sucrose, the product contains a lot of sugar. Also look for sugar, honey, corn syrup, or corn sweetener.

2. Reduce the amount of sugar in your baking up to 1/2.

3. Serve fresh, juice packed or water packed fruits.

4. Drink 100%% fruit juice. Soft drinks may have 10 teaspoons of added sugar per can.

5. Don't substitute honey for sugar. It contains more calories per teaspoon than sugar.