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Changing Recipes for Health

Cooking is an adventure and it can be fattening, too. If you take a quick glance through your favorite recipe cookbooks or at your recipe file, you can see how the calories and fat can really add up. That is not to mention all the sodium in common recipes—that is no good for you either. The good news is that there are changes you can make to your everyday recipes that can help you lower the fat, calories and the sodium. This will help you stay fit, trim and healthy. Here is a look at common changes you can make in your recipes that will add up big in the end.

Applesauce for oil: If you are baking bread, cakes, muffins or quick bread, you can substitute regular flavored applesauce for the oil. It is easy to do, simply add the amount of applesauce instead of the oil. You can often to the same thing with butter. If you still like the taste and texture that the vegetable oil adds, you can substitute half of the applesauce for the oil. Making this simple change can save you both fat and calories. This is an easy and simple switch to make.

Egg substitute for eggs: There are several brands of egg substitutes that you can use in place of eggs in many recipes. These even taste just like eggs when scrambled. These are always lower in fat and calories and contain no cholesterol. Use egg substitute in your baking recipes as well as your casseroles and other dishes.

Broth for butter: Here is a great tip—instead of adding butter to your vegetables or rice, use broth. Chicken, beef and vegetable broth will all add a great flavor to your dishes without adding the big amounts of fat. If you are using bouillon cubes, then just add a couple to the water as you cook. If you are worried about your sodium intake, then you can buy low-sodium broth and bouillon cubes instead. That is a great change to make to all of your favorite recipes.

Lean ground turkey instead of ground beef: Lean ground turkey is tasty and cooks just like regular ground beef. Ground beef has a lot of fat and while you can drain the fat, it never eliminates it completely. How about using ground turkey instead? Look for ground turkey breast, which is leaner and has few calories and fat grams than ground beef.

Low fat cheese and dairy: A very easy switch you can make is to use low fat cheese and dairy products in your cooking such as low or no fat sour cream, cream cheese, yogurt and ricotta cheese. When you use them in recipes, you will hardly notice the different. It is important to note that some low fat or fat free cheese does not melt the same, but you can use it if you are just using a little in tacos or other recipes.

Making the switch to low fat, low calories and low sodium does not have to be hard. You can use these tips to make your recipes better for you.