In January, the month of resolutions, people often commit to eating healthier. It’s often easier to make small changes than launch an all-out assault. Small changes like substituting healthier foods for high fat, high sodium, etc. You’ll feel better and making these alterations might help with that other, never-ending, resolution of losing weight. Who knows after losing weight, you might be inspired to do that other thing. You know (whispering): exercise.
Instead of bacon for breakfast, try Canadian bacon. Instead of whole bacon on your salad, use bacon bits.
Try egg whites for whole eggs. You can buy egg whites or simply divide the yolks from the whites. What, you may ask, will I then do with these yolks? You can freeze egg yolks for later use, especially in baking. Most cooks recommend freezing no more than four yolks in freezer proof containers (even baggies). If you have enough yolks, you might try putting one each in the compartments of an ice tray. Put ice tray in a freezer baggies. Once frozen, pop out the frozen yolks and store them in the baggie. Go to Cooks.com for recipes to use egg yolks. Get other ideas at The Kitchn.
And, of course you can use egg whites instead of whole eggs when baking. Speaking of baking, use applesauce as substitutions for butter, margarine or shortening. Need heavy cream? Freeze evaporated milk and whip in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Substitute 3/4 white flour plus 1/4 wheat flour for white flour (if you’re really adventurous, mix the flours half and half).
If you need the flour as a thickening agent, substitute half as much cornstarch for amount of flour required.
Love cream cheese on bagels? Try Neufchatel cheese instead. Fewer calories and fat, and often it’s less expensive. Need ricotta cheese for say, lasagna? Consider pureed low-fat cottage cheese.
And, of course, you probably know some of the well known ones: substituting ground turkey for ground beef; using Greek yogurt in place of sour cream; skim or 2% milk instead of whole milk; and brown rice instead of white.
This list wouldn’t be complete without a substitute for dessert. Instead of ice cream or other sugar and high fructose corn syrup choices like store sorbet, try this recipe.
To a blender add following:
1/2 c of frozen strawberries (or frozen fruit of your choice.)
1 TBS Greek yogurt
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon orange juice
Optional: 1/4 teaspoon rosemary herbs or 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary
Experiment with each ingredient, use more or less to your taste. Blend until smooth, scrape into a freezer safe container and freeze until ready to consume. Once you personalize recipe, you can make bigger batches for freezing.
©2012 DLewis
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