I don’t know about you, but I love all types of food. These days everything is made with high saturated fats, bad carbs, high calories and fatty meats. So why not find a healthy option to continue to cook your favorite meals for you and your family? I have found 8 tips on low-fat cooking that will be of some help to you when you are preparing your favorite meals. Plus, it will help shed some pounds along the way!
1. Use a spray
I would recommend you use nonstick cooking spray instead of butter or oil; or try to choose liquid oils over solid fats such as: canola or olive oil. Check to see if they oils you are using contain saturated fat. If they do, then you need to switch cooking oils to one with low or no saturated fat.
2. Switch to chicken!
When buying meat or poultry you want to choose extra-lean meat and one of my favorites in the past 10 years, skinless chicken breasts. You might want to check into some low-fat recipes’ using beef and chicken. You will be surprised what you find and how delicious it tastes.
3. Don't fry
Growing up, our family loved to fry just about everything. Well, these days fried foods are not recommended. I will say that every once in a while, I will fry up some chicken or pork chops. However, what you should do now is grill, broil, bake, steam, poach slow-cook and get this microwave your foods. It's okay to sauté, but you should use minimal amounts of oil, or use non-stick spray, or instead you can use both.
4. Breadcrumbs vs. batter
Another tip for chicken, pork and fish is to coat them with breadcrumbs rather than batter. I like to use wheat flour and breadcrumbs. I rarely use white flour when I cook anymore. You might also want to bake your chicken, fish or pork instead of frying.
5. Protein, baby!
Use beans, vegetable or whole grains to replace some of the meat content of chili, burgers and meatloaves. There are some great recipes online to make these low-fat meals. I have tried a meatloaf that used turkey meat and it was really pretty good!
6. What about football parties?
With football season in full swing, we women are stuck with preparing the meals and figuring out what types of snack foods to have. Keep in mind that yes, men don’t care anything about low-fat foods, however, there are women that attend the football parties who are health conscious. Look into using reduced fat sour cream or yogurt instead of full-fat versions for stews, spreads, dressings and dips.
7. Switch your sausage
Choose chicken or turkey sausages instead of pork or beef. Yes, it will taste different, but you will get use to it. Remember, if you are trying to lose weight or change your eating habits, there are some things that you and your family have to sacrifice. Hey, you might like the chicken or turkey better! I know I do.
8. Go vegetarian (for one day)
One thing that I have always heard that will help in losing or maintaining weight is to eat a fish or vegetarian meal twice a week and give your body a rest from meat dishes.
I hope that you find my tips to be helpful. Remember though it’s still important to exercise and watch your food portions.. These low-fat cooking tips are just added help into keeping the weight off or losing the weight. Let me know what you think! Are there some tips that I missed that you care to share?
Top Photo Credit: allykeer
