Reducing the amount of fat in your meals doesn't have to mean eliminating your favorites or serving bland foods. You can serve many traditional dishes with less fat by substituting healthier ingredients. Using food labels and making smart choicces, you can create meals that satisfy your palate without the excess fat, all week long.
Start With Favorites
Write a list of your favorite dishes. Identify the items you feel contribute to the fat content. For example, in a pizza, meat toppings and cheese provide most of the fat. Ground beef is the culprit in hamburgers. Bacon and sausage cause breakfast fat to soar. Create a menu plan for the week that includes your favorites, along with the ingredients you'll need to change.
Identify Substitutes
Go down your list of favorite dishes and look at substitutes for the ingredients you have identified as containing too much fat. Instead of hamburgers made with ground beef, consider turkey burgers made from lean breast meat. Substitute vegetable toppings for pepperoni and sausage on pizza and use a low-fat cheese. Serve lean ham at breakfast or strips of turkey bacon and pair with whole grain pancakes or waffles, instead of eggs. Use an egg substitute for scrambles and microwave them in a cup to make a souffle, eliminating the need for cooking oil. Serve skim, soy or almond milk instead of whole milk. Make bean burritos instead of using ground beef, and use low-fat sour cream and cheese. Mash avocados instead of using guacamole. Serve a meatless tomato sauce with spaghetti instead of a high-fat Alfredo sauce.
Use Healthy Fats
Low-fat doesn't have to mean no-fat. Some fats are healthy and you should include them in your meals. Stay away from saturated fats and trans fats, found in many processed and baked goods. Use olive oil instead of butter on garlic bread. Serve fish, such as tuna and salmon, to get heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Nuts have healthy, monounsaturated fats and are a good source of protein.
Breakfast
Serve items such as oatmeal, fortified cereals, fresh fruit, egg white omelets, low-fat yogurt, whole-grain breads, bagels or muffins with no trans fats, pancakes and waffles, skim milk and cottage cheese with fruit.
Lunch
Use a low-fat mayonnaise to make chicken or tuna salad. Serve hearty salads and vegetable soups made with a vegetable stock. Choose low-fat cold cuts for sandwiches and use mustard, rather than mayonnaise, and fill them with vegetables such as lettuce, tomatoes, onions, sprouts and cucumbers. Add nuts to salads and use low-fat dressings. Serve meatless, thin-crust pizza.
Dinner
Use baked taco shells and fill with seasoned ground turkey, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and black beans. Skip the meat and reduce the cheese in lasagna or spaghetti dishes. Make mac and cheese without the butter, eggs and whole milk. Use low-fat cheese and milk and add tuna, chicken or turkey and one or two vegetables. Instead of using pork, veal and beef for meatloaf, use ground turkey. Ground turkey is also a low-fat choice for sliders. Serve dinner in courses, starting with a soup, then a salad, to reduce the amount of a "main dish" you or your family will need. The possibilities for stir-frys are endless --- add shrimp for a low-fat alternative to beef. Serve low-fat cuts of beef, such as flank or sirloin, rather than filets or ribeyes.
Divide Your Plate
For each meal, fill half the plate with nonstarchy vegetables. Fill one-fourth of the plate with starchy vegetables, such as potatoes, rice or pasta, and fill the other one-fourth of the plate with a lean protein. Add a serving of fruit and low-fat dairy to complete a healthy meal.
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