We all know, we need to eat healthy, but does this mean we need to give up our grandmother’s recipes which tasted very good but are in the category of not so healthy foods? You love to eat them, but are worried about sugar, fat, salt or cholesterol content. Do not worry; you can make simple ingredient substitutions to create healthy recipes that don’t sacrifice taste and enjoyment. Making recipes comes down to basically three things:
- Trimming extra fat and fat-containing ingredients
- Trimming extra sugar and sugar-containing ingredients.
- Adding fiber by whole grains and variety of fruits and vegetables.
The following suggestions can help you lower fat, salt, sugar and calories and increase fiber in your recipes and thus creating healthier recipes.
- Use more whole grain foods by replacing white with brown bread, maida with whole wheat flour, brown or red rice with white rice.
- Increase the amount of fiber in favorite recipes by adding fresh vegetables, legumes and fruits. Add greens, sprouts or crushed vegetables in your parathas, puri, idli or dosa.
- Try and reduce fat content in your meals, consume low fat cheese, skimmed milk instead of full fat milk or cheese. Try and replace cream with other ingredients such as buttermilk, curd or milk wherever possible. E.g. Instead of cream or butter in dal makhani, add skimmed milk. It will give same texture and flavour to your dal makhani with less fat and calories. You can incorporate curd instead of cream in shahi paneer. For baked goods, likes cakes you can use half the butter or oil and replace the other half with mashed banana.
- Instead of sugar you can always use sugar substitutes like sucralose. In most baked goods you can reduce the amount of sugar by one-half; intensify sweetness by adding vanilla, nutmeg or cinnamon.
- You can reduce salt levels in food by herb and spice seasonings like mint, roasted jeera or limejuice.
- Use chicken and fish rather than mutton or red meat.
Change to a cooking method that eliminates the need for cooking fat (broiling, roasting, poaching, steaming) when possible. But when it is necessary to use fat in order to maintain the character of the food, just use less of it (oven frying, sauteing or pan frying in less fat). Being a bit creative in the kitchen can prove to be a lot of fun. Healthy food no longer has to be dull and boring anymore. These are just a couple of ideas that work wonderfully; you may be able to find more of them. Once you’ve done your best to approximate an ingredient with replacements in your recipe, you’ll have to try it out to see how well you’ve done. Make notes of any alterations, so you can refer to them the next time you prepare the food. You may have to make the recipe a few times, adjusting your alterations, before you get the results you want.
No matter how much you reduce, switch or omit ingredients, some recipes may still be high in sugar, fat or salt. In these cases, reduce the amount of that food you eat. Smaller portions allow you to eat a wider variety of foods during a meal. Eating a variety of foods will also ensure that you get all the energy, protein, vitamins, minerals and fiber you need.
