In our foods, the majority of excess calories come from fat and sugar. It’s easy to reduce these amounts without sacrificing taste or texture.
In sweet baked goods up to 3/4 of the fat (oil or butter) can be replaced with equal amounts of any of the following: pureed pumpkin, mashed white beans, unsweetened applesauce, or plain yogurt. This works great in muffins, pancakes, cakes, brownies, and quick breads.
Replacing the fat in cookies this way will make them more cake-like, but you can reduce the butter by 1/4 and add a tablespoon of skim milk for texture without much noticeable change.
Sugar is essential to the texture and browning of baked goods like cookies and cakes, but sometimes you can reduce the amount of sugar by 1/3 or 1/4 without noticing any change!
By switching to whole grain flours instead of white refined flours, you increase the nutrition and fiber content of your foods. Start by replacing half the white flour with whole wheat and increasing from there. My family uses whole grains pretty exclusively and we don’t mind it. You can replace white flour with whole wheat flour cup for cup, but your baked goods will be lighter if you remove one Tablespoon of whole wheat flour for each cup. Also you can buy soft red whole wheat flour(AKA whole wheat pastry flour), which has been grown especially for quick baking. I buy hard white wheat berries and flour which we like for both baking and bread making.
To reduce fat in biscuits, look for a biscuit recipe that includes yeast and buttermilk. This will help your biscuits rise higher and remain light even with less fat. Don’t eliminate the fat completely and be sure not to cut it into too small of pieces. Leaving pea size lumps will help give your biscuits the texture you are hoping for.
You can replace skim milk for whole milk or cream in almost any recipe. If your creation tastes a little “thin” try adding evaporated skim milk, a few cubes of lowfat cream cheese, or powdered skim milk to boost it next time.
It’s not necessary to use oil or butter when sauteeing at all! A little spritz of non-stick olive or canola oil based spray is enough to keep everything from sticking and a dash of salt will help bring out the natural flavors without added calories. If your pan starts to get dry, add a few tablespoons of water or broth to keep your dish from scortching.
Plain yogurt can replace mayonnaise or sour cream in equal amounts in most recipes. I use it in my beef stroganoff, mashed potatoes, salad dressings, macaroni and cheese (instead of butter); cheese cake; and ice cream recipes!
Using 93% lean ground turkey instead of extra lean ground beef will save you about 100 calories per serving. If you prefer to use beef, you can drain and rinse the cooked beef under hot water. This will remove most of the excess fat bringing it almost as lean as the ground turkey! When making meatloaf and meatballs, this type of rinsing isn’t possible and using ground turkey is your best bet.
93% ground turkey can also be seasoned like breakfast sausage or Italian Sausage for an amazing nutritional and financial boost over traditional sausage.
I love this “Mashed Potato” recipe made from Cauliflower. It tastes surprisingly like the real thing for only a fraction of the carbs and calories.
Finally, when making your favorite recipes healthier, try tweaking only one thing at a time. Going fat free, whole grain, and replacing the sugar with a substitute all at once will sure to leave your recipe tasting like cardboard. Every recipe needs a little “real” food to make it edible :).
Going fat-free will NOT help you lose weight. It is the fat in foods, especially saturated fats, that make one feel full. If you do not have the fats, you will eat more total calories–and fats are usually replaced with carbs (even applesauce is a carb), which are converted to sugar by the body (this happens more quickly in the absence of fats, as well), and raise the blood sugar, which, long-term, feeds into insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes, and, short-term, contributes to weight gain/retention.
Those who stay on top of current nutrition research are finally starting to get past the whole low-fat thing, as the science supporting it is shaky at best.
Ditching sugar, now, there is plenty of research to support that, and more comes out everyday. The less refined sugar in one’s diet, the better.
For quick info, http://www.mercola.com is a good place to go, but he does sell stuff. For more in-depth info, http://www.westonaprice.org is a good place to go, and all they sell is a very good cookbook.
Hey Heather, thanks for writing. I’ve read Nourishing Traditions and tried increasing my fat intake and I gained weight. The point is not to go fat free but to reduce overall caloric intake. When we are overweight, we have fat and fat soluble vitamins stored in it to excess. What we can’t make is protein. By reducing our fat and carb intake without reducing our protein we lower our calories forcing our body to burn stored fat while protecting our muscle. I’m not advocating avoiding fat altogether, just reducing it. If eating more fat helps you lose weight, go for it! I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work for me.
I ran out of eggs last week and made do until the next grocery trip with a huge jar of unsweetened applesauce. I even made some amazing chocolate cookies without the eggs. Not that I wanted to, I just did. I did notice a sacrifice in flavor or texture at all.
Thanks so much for the info! I have also read Nourishing Traditions and well its a very hard book to get through! My family eats whole grains and more whole foods, but at the same time you have to find what works for you! If I stay away from all forms of sugar I can lose weight as well, its hard some days and some days its easy. I really have enjoyed your weight loss and fitness post! You have provided us with lots of info, and I really appreciate it! Whats matters most is like you said find what works for you! Thanks for all the tips! We love healthy fats at my home in moderation, because I too can tend to gain weight on even healthy good fats.
Joy
I hope that this answers some of your questions..You can substitute all purpose flour in place of the whole wheat with the same results and the calorie count will stay pretty much the same. The regular whole wheat flour will make your baked goods much more dense heavy and chewy not what you want in a light fluffy baked good .