Kitchen Nutrition

Tips for cutting calories in the kitchen

General cooking swaps

• Use plain low-fat yogurt in place of sour cream or mayonnaise
• Always use nonstick pans and cooking spray, instead of oil, whenever possible
• Use whipped butter in place of stick butter, if you must use butter at all
• Replace cream cheese with Neufchâtel cheese—saves 33% of the fat
• Replacing cream cheese with blenderized low fat cottage cheese in cheesecake recipes adds protein
• Grate fresh Parmesan on your food right before serving for a powerful punch of flavor
• Make your own fat-free tartar sauce by combining two parts low-sodium sweet relish to one part fat-free mayonnaise
• Microwave diced onion with a little liquid for 1-2 minutes instead of cooking the onion in oil on the stove
• Use the power of steam to carmalize veggies. When cooking veggies in a pot or pan for a recipe (such as fajitas and stirfry), just add small amounts of water every few minutes to help them cook. 

Meat, Poultry, and Fish

• Season with herbs and spices, instead of sauces or butter
• Remove skin and fat from meat and poultry before cooking
• Cook meat or poultry on a rack, so that the fat will drain off
• Use Canadian bacon in place of regular bacon

  

• Always choose low-fat/low-sodium broths
• Buy your meat in 3 to 4-oz portions
• Choose lower cuts of beef and pork with the words "round" and "loin" in the name.
• Buy 90% or more lean ground meats 
• Substitute beef tenderloin for beef rib eye, eye of the round for top round, lean pork chops for pork ribs, turkey scallopini for veal scallopini, and any cut of venison for any cut of beef.
• Consider using portobello mushroom in place of beef.
• In recipes calling for bacon fat, substitute vegetable oil and hickory-smoked turkey wings, back, or neck meat.
• Sauté the oil and meat together for 10 minutes, and then use 1-2 tsp of the oil to flavor your dish.  

Fish: Tilapia and salmon are good starter fish options because they don't have a strong "fishy" flavor. 

• Fresh water fish are less "fishy" tasting than most salt water fish.
• Try baking fish at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes on top of a bed of veggies (onions add great flavor). 
• Season fish with Cajun seasoning or fat free Italian salad dressing 

Salmon

Braising and stewing: Use leaner cuts of meat, which tend to be tougher, such as game meats, chuck roast, brisket, and flank steak.

Faux Fry it! 
To bread meat the low-fat way, dip meat in skim milk or egg whites and crushed low-fat, unsweetened cereal (like Fiber One Original). Add herbs to bread crumbs to spice up your meal!

• Bake on a sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.
• Make your own tortilla chips by spraying olive oil cooking spray on a low calorie tortilla and baking it in the oven 

Ask me for samples of this cereal at your next visit!

Soups and salads

• Use a pureed potato in place of cream to thicken soup
• The taste of fat can add a lot of flavor to a soup, but the cooking process dilutes the flavor. Instead, make your soup as low-fat as possible, and then add either a teaspoon of heavy cream or oil to each dish right before serving. 
• Serve dressing on the side. Dip your fork in dressing instead of pouring dressings on top.
• Use orange or lemon juice in place of some of the oil in homemade dressings  
• Use fresh fruit or thawed frozen fruit in salads in place of dried fruit; Fiber filled fresh fruit has a lot less calories and sugar per serving than dried fruit.
• Dried fruit is still a good option just limit portion sizes to 1/4 cup or less per salad.  

Flavoring with fruits and veggies:
The following is a list of fruits and veggies that (can be used in place of fattening and sugary sauces and) pair well with certain meat dishes.

• Caramelized onions and/ or mushrooms
• Lean steak/beef, Salmon, and baked chicken with red pasta sauce.
• Carrots
• chicken and Rosemary, white fish, lean pork such as pork loin
• Vine-ripened tomatoes
• All types of meats, fish, and poultry. Cooking them gives different flavor.
• Apples and/ or pears (caramelizing through baking yields an even sweeter flavor)
• Pork loins and poultry
• Sweet berries
• Pork loins and poultry
• Sweet bell peppers
• Lean beef, fish, poultry, and pork loins
• Pimientos
• Chicken and lean beef
• Pineapple
• Fish, Chicken, and pork loin

Flavoring with herbs

• BASIL — a natural snipped in with tomatoes; terrific in fresh pesto; other possibilities include pasta sauce, peas, zucchini
• CHIVES — dips, potatoes, tomatoes
• CILANTRO — Mexican, Asian and Caribbean cooking; salsas, tomatoes
• DILL — carrots, cottage cheese, fish, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes
• MINT — carrots, fruit salads, parsley, peas, tabouli, tea
• OREGANO — peppers, tomatoes
• PARSLEY — The curly leaf is the most common, but the flat-leaf or Italian parsley is more strongly flavored and often preferred for cooking. Naturals for parsley include potato salad, tabouli
• ROSEMARY — chicken, fish, lamb, pork, roasted potatoes, soups, stews, tomatoes
• SAGE — poultry seasoning, stuffings
• TARRAGON — chicken, eggs, fish
• THYME — eggs, lima beans, potatoes, poultry, summer squash, tomatoes
• WINTER SAVORY — dried bean dishes, stews

Click here to go to the University of Lincoln Nebraska Extension's guide to growing, picking, and preparing herbs for use in the kitchen.
Click here to go to The Cook's Thesaurus for more detailed info about cooking with herbs and recipe suggestions

Salt free seasoning

Taste of Home's seasoning mix for chicken and pork dishes

• Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon each dried basil, marjoram, parsley flakes, thyme and savory
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon rubbed sage
• 1 teaspoon ground mace
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• Directions: In a small bowl, crush the basil, marjoram, parsley, thyme and savory. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Store in an airtight container. Yield: about 1/4 cup.
• Nutritional Analysis: One serving (1/2 teaspoon) equals 3 calories, trace fat (trace saturated fat), 0 cholesterol, 1 mg sodium, 1 g carbohydrate, trace fiber, trace protein.
• Diabetic Exchange: Free food.

Baking Swaps

Fat is needed to keep baked goods moist and tender, but sometimes we are able to use less and achieve tasty results.

How Much Fat Can You Cut?
Since baked goods require very specific measurements, cutting oil and butter can be tricky and it may take some trial and error.

• Try splitting a recipe into thirds and make adjustments to each mini-batch to avoid wasting large amounts of food.

Simple Swaps to Try
The typical ingredients that add fat to your baked goods are eggs, oil, butter, shortening, milk and cream. There are several easy swaps you can make, but be warned that they may change the texture slightly. In the end, these changes will cut back on the total fat and much of the less-healthy saturated fat.

Butter, Shortening, and Oil

• Replace half the butter or oil with applesauce, egg whites or plain yogurt.
• Trade half the butter with pureed fruit such as mashed bananas, apple butter or prunes (prunes work best with chocolate recipes).
• Replace each 1/2 cup shortening with 1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil

Avocado

Replace butter and shortening with avocado. 1 cup of avocado for 1 cup of butter. You may have to increase other liquids as the avocado does not melt like butter. Naturally the avocado will give the dough a slight green color which it maintains even after it is baked however the flavor diminishes.

• A 3.5 oz. serving of avocados contains 14.66 g of fat, while the same size serving of butter contains 81 g. So by substituting avocado for butter in your baking you are greatly reducing your calories.

• Note: Avocado will make your cakes rise up higher in the center, and in some occasions may even cave. It also browns quicker, and therefore your cake may look well done on the outside, but the inside may still be doughy. To avoid these things from happening, reduce your oven temperature by about 25 percent and increase your baking time. If this starts happening just cover the cake with tinfoil loosely until the center is fully cooked, this will prevent further browning.

Eggs

• Replace each whole egg with two egg whites or 1/4 cup egg substitute.
• Replace eggs with avocado. When substituting avocado for eggs in your baking, start by substituting 2 tbsp. to 1/4 cup mashed avocado for each egg.

Cream, cream cheese, sour cream

• Replace cream with equal parts of evaporated skim milk.
• Replace half the cream cheese with equal parts of (blenerized) reduced-fat cottage cheese or part-skim ricotta cheese.
• Replace equal parts sour cream with plain or Greek-style yogurt.
• Replace whole milk with 1% milk,  unsweetened almond milk, or unsweetened soy milk. 

Sugar

• Frost a cake with marshmallow cream which is about half as many calories as frosting
• Truvia brand stevia. Natural sugar substitute. Conversion chart on their website.

Box Cakes

Other

• Use 3 oz of unsweetened cocoa powder mixed with 1 Tbsp of healthy oil in place of 1 oz of baking chocolate

References

R411.com

Baskette M, Mainella E. The Art of Nutritional Cooking. Upper Saddle River, NJ:Prentice Hall; 1998:129,157-161.

Berkoff N. Nutrition for the Culinary Arts. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education; 2005:329.

Gielisse V, Kimbrough ME, Gielisse KG. In Good Taste: A Contemporary Approach to Cooking. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall; 1999:151.

Harrar S, Loecher B, Konner L, Prevention Magazine Health Books. Food and You. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press; 1996:383-386.

Dana Angelo White, MS, RD, ATC, is a contributor to Food Network's Healthy Eats blog, a registered dietitian, certified athletic trainer and owner of Dana White Nutrition, Inc., which specializes in culinary and sports nutrition

Salt-Free Seasoning Mix published in Light & Tasty October/November 2003, p8

 http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Salt-Free-Seasoning-Mix

University of Nebraska, Lincoln extension http://lancaster.unl.edu/food/cookingfreshherbs-color.pdf