Permalink Make Holiday Recipes Healthier
For the first post of Holiday Food Week I want to introduce you to Calorie Count. Calorie Count is a free service of About.com Health.
This holiday season you can have your cake...and eat it too!
Mary Hartley, R.D. from Calorie Count put on a roundtable for bloggers to share hints and tips on how to make the food that we serve and eat during the holiday season healthier.
Calorie Count is a website that provides tools to help you manage your weight. It is so easy to use their site, and the information they provide is sure to get you more interested in your health and be more aware of what you are putting into your body.
One of the neatest features that the site provides is the Recipe Analyzer. You input your recipe, with the amount of servings and ingredients, and it will give you the nutrional information just like you would find on store bought food. This enables you to see how many calories each serving is, how much fat, cholesterol, fiber etc.
There is a bit of a learning curve to using it, but it is a great way to see where you can change your recipes to save calories or fat, to be able to either keep the pounds off, or maybe get a few more treats for the same calorie value during the season!
We were also given some tips on ingredient substitutions to use in your holiday recipes such as;
Instead of heavy cream you could use evaporated skim milk or 2 teaspoons cornstarch or 1 tablespoon flour whisked into skim milk = 1 cup. Or if your recipe calls for butter, shortening, or oil in baked goods you could replace it with applesauce or prune puree for half of the called-for butter, shortening or oil.
Mary also gave us some help for holiday eating:
* Bring a healthy dish to the party - at least you're assured of one healthy dish!
* Check out the entire array of food before digging in.
* Don't waste calories on mediocre food or any food you don't really love.
* Eat slowly and consciously enough to notice when you are satisfied.
* Satisfied is not the same as full.
* Don't overfill your plate. You can always go back for more of something really wonderful.
* Don't sit near the table when eating time is over.
* Limits alcohol to one or two drinks.
Hopefully I'll be able to remember those tips and avoid the extra cushioning that finds its way to my hips during December!
I really encourage you to check out Calorie Count, it is an interesting community with lots of information.
In appreciation for posting about Calorie Counts I was provided with an e-book of recipes. I received no monetary compensation.
Reader Comments (3)
Nice! I'll have to check it out. I am really trying to keep better track of our intake.
Checking out the entire array of food is great advice....it can help to save you from grabbing tons of everything! lol
I like the idea of not wasting calories on just anything.