| Cooking With Flair and Flavor
Eating a healthy diet doesnt mean you have to sacrifice flavor or give up your favorite family recipes. Theres an abundance of seasonings and healthy cooking methods that will satisfy your demanding taste buds and meet your nutritional needs as well.
With a few simple menu modifications, you can prepare flavorful meals that are loaded with nutrients but low in fat, calories and sodium. Adopting a healthy diet can reduce your risk of heart disease and some types of cancer and help to control high blood pressure too.
The thought of tinkering with Grandma's recipe seems almost sacrilegious. But by making minor adjustments to your family recipes, you will be creating new family traditions, the most important one being the commitment to longevity and good health.
Food Fact: Low-fat means 3 grams or less per serving; low-sodium means less than 100 milligrams per serving.
Before cooking:
- Trim visible fat from meat.
- Remove skin from poultry.
- Prepare meat, fish and poultry without breading or batter.
While cooking:
- Brown meats with little or no oil or fat and use nonstick pans and nonstick cooking spray.
- Drain the fat off the meat before mixing it with other ingredients.
- Place meats on a rack, so the fat can drain away from the meat as it cooks.
- Bake, broil, roast, grill or microwave food instead of frying.
Food Fact: Removing skin from poultry can trim the fat by more than half.
Sure, fat sometimes adds flavor. But with a smidgen of creativity and a dab of daring you can add flavor to your meals the fat-free way. The next time you cook, try some of these fat-free and creative seasoning methods. You might discover that fat-free can actually be flavorful.
- Sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil)
- Lemon and orange peels
- Lemon pepper
- Salsa
- Browned onions
- Ginger root
- Flavored vinegar
- Salt-free seasoning blends
- Grainy or Dijon-style mustard
Try a few of our menu-modification ideas and start some new family traditions.
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For:
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Try:
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Grits and pasta
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Sharp cheeses provide more flavor than the milder cheeses, and grated cheeses can be distributed better, so less can be used. Choose fat-free, skim or low-fat cheese and milk products. Salt-free herb seasonings, peppers, celery and onion also can add flavoring.
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Rice
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Dried soup mix (low sodium), fat-free or reduced-fat gravy mixes, or low-fat margarine; sweet peppers and onions.
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Collard greens
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Use onion, celery, garlic, sweet pepper, black pepper, and thyme.
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Fish
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Hot sauce, lemon, dill weed, celery seed, onion, curry, dry mustard, black pepper, parsley, marjoram, rosemary and wine.
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Poultry
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Lemon, orange, tomato, onion, parsley, sweet peppers, garlic, soups (dried or condensed), reduced sodium soy sauce, thyme, basil, and black pepper.
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Meat
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Red and black pepper, garlic and basil.
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Nows your opportunity to put your menu-modification skills to practice. Print the simple substitution chart and select three recommendations. Make a commitment to give them a try.
Following these simple substitution tips can help you lower calories, fat and cholesterol from your favorite recipes.
Print the Cooking With Flair Quiz below and circle the answer to each question.
1. A cookie with only 5 fat grams per serving would qualify as low-fat.
A. True B. False
2. Deep frying meat in oil is fine as long as foods dont sit in the oil for long periods of time after cooking.
A. True B. False
3. Sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil), lemon pepper and ginger root are all fat-free flavor foods.
A. True B. False
4. Spaghetti sauce that has 420 milligrams of salt per serving would pass the low-sodium test.
A. True B. False
5. Removing the skin from poultry does not significantly reduce the fat content.
A. True B. False
Go to the answer key and see how you did.
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