FRIDAY, Aug. 6, 2004 (HealthDayNews) -- It can be hard to make wholesale changes in your diet to eat healthier and lose weight, but switching a few key ingredients in your recipes can make it easy.
The August issue of Mayo Clinic Women's HealthSource provides some tips on how to make some healthy recipe alterations:
- Use low-fat or fat-free yogurt, milk or cheese instead of the full-fat versions.
- When you bake, replace all or part of the butter or oil with applesauce or prune puree.
- Use cooking spray for frying and in place of oil or butter when you grease baking pans.
- Instead of oil, use low-fat or fat-free broth when you saute vegetables. If you prefer oil, use half the amount of what's called for in the recipe.
- Grill or broil meats and poultry so that most of the fat drops off.
- Buy lean cuts of meat and cut away all visible fat before you cook it.
- Reduce sugar in recipes by a third or half. You can substitute prune puree, mashed bananas or unsweetened applesauce for some or all of the sugar in a recipe.
- Use cinnamon, nutmeg and other sweet spices to flavor foods.
More information
The American Academy of Family Physicians offers nutrition advice.