Sunday, September 27, 2009

Easy Tips To Cook Low Fat Recipes

By Fiona Wyresdle

Changing your lifestyle to using low fat cooking means that you will need to change your shopping habits as well as your cooking habits. There are many low fat cooking recipes available in cookbooks as well as online. It is important to also be aware of the calorie content of your food because if you are not careful some low fat cooking can be high in calories and sugar.

The first step to using low fat cooking is to replace all of the high fat foods in your kitchen with low fat alternative. Some good low fat food product choices include oils, canned fish, canned fruits and vegetables, legumes and grains, pasta, soups and stocks, herbs, spices, seasonings, whole grain breads, dried fruits, seeds, nuts, maple syrup, honey, pretzels, popcorn, applesauce, and fat free/sugar free pudding.

Some of the items that should be eliminated from your kitchen include oil based dressings, regular mayonnaise, shortening, oil packed fish and tuna, canned meats, chowders and creamed soups, boxed macaroni and cheese, rice mixes, flavored pasta, gravy mixes, pancake mixes, cheese sauces, sugary cereals, anything that contains partially hydrogenated, corn chips, potato chips, coffee creamer and white bread.

However fat can also be present in other food products that you may normally think of as healthy. For these types of products there are low fat equivalents that can still be used. If you drink whole milk then you should switch to a lower fat milk. You should aim for 1% or skim milk being the best. You also should chose low fat or light diary products such as cheese and yogurt.

Butter and margarine are full of fat and margarine is full of Trans fat. If you still want to use products like butter or margarine try liquid spreads that have no Trans fat or products that blend oils with the butter. Eggs have a lot of cholesterol but they are choke full of good nutrients and vitamins. Instead of using whole eggs, use egg white or egg substitutes and keep your use of whole eggs to a minimum.

When purchasing meats you want to get as lean a cut as you can. It is also important to keep an eye out for the sodium in meats. If you enjoy eating hotdogs then switch to turkey dogs and go for veggie burgers instead of beef ones. Pork tenderloin is a very lean cut of meat and skinless chicken is also an excellent meat choice.

Meat also needs to be lean and there are options you can use instead of eating very fatty meat. Beef hamburgers and hotdogs have a lot of fat and contain high levels of salt. Instead of these items you can have turkey dogs and vegetarian burgers. One of the leanest cuts of meat is pork tenderloin. Chicken instead of beef is also a good option.

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