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Healthier Holiday Meals
Fall 2009
Contact: Joanne Littlefield
Assistant Director-Community Relations
Phone: (970) 491-4640
Joanne.Littlefield@colostate.edu
With the holiday season quickly approaching, you may already be planning your holiday dinner menu. Many of your family’s holiday favorites require ingredients high in fat, sugar and salt. Finding ways to cut back on extra calories and fat can be difficult. With food preparation tips from Colorado State University Extension, you can find healthy modifications to recipes while preserving taste and quality.
To reduce calories, start by identifying ingredients with high calorie and fat content that can be eliminated, reduced or replaced with more nutritious ones. Sugar can be reduced by one-quarter to one-third in baked goods and desserts. When baking cookies, bars and cakes try replacing one-quarter of the sugar called for with an equal amount of nonfat dry milk. Adding extra spice or flavoring can help enhance the sweetness of foods. Sugar can also be replaced with non-caloric alternatives, such as Splenda.
Recipes can be modified to increase fiber content. In baked foods, a part of all-purpose flour can be substituted with whole grain. Daily intake of fiber comes from many fresh fruits and vegetables. Create healthier holiday meals by simply adding a serving of steamed, or stir fry vegetables to your plate. You also incorporate fiber by having a salad with a small amount of your favorite dressing at each meal. Try adding a serving of fresh fruits to baked goods and desserts.
Before modifying recipes, it’s important to have a general idea of the function of ingredients and what will happen if a recipe is changed. If modifying a recipe will result in a holiday cooking disaster, remember to enjoy foods with high fat and calorie content in moderation. For more information on recipe modifications, go to www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09316.html
Updated Tuesday, September 13, 2011
