February 9, 2009

Revising Favorites to be Heart Healthy

Heart Healthy Month, February, is an excellent reminder of the link between diet and health. Healthy eating habits involve healthy cooking habits and healthy recipes. Often we have a favorite recipe that has been part of our family for several years and we may know it is heavy on fat, sugar and salt. If you are looking at updating a recipe to be heart healthy, the following questions are a way to begin.

Is the recipe already low in one area of concern - fat, cholesterol, sugar or salt? If so, only minor changes may be needed. For example, if a recipe calls for an egg and the dish serves eight people, the amount of cholesterol per serving is already fairly low and you can move to checking the amount of fat, sugar and salt in the recipe.

How often do you eat the food? If you make a certain dish only once or twice a year, it may not be as important to modify that particular recipe as it is to identify other foods that you eat more frequently.

How much of the food do you eat? Sometimes the best way to revise a recipe is to eat less of it. Decreasing the quantity you eat may be more satisfying than decreasing the actual or perceived quality of a food. One example is sugar-free or low-sugar jelly and jam. For some people, eating one teaspoon of regular jam/jelly a week is preferred to eating one teaspoon a day of sugar-free jam/jelly.

When you do decide to move ahead with revising a recipe, substituting fat-free or reduced-fat ingredients is a great place to start. Remember, when modifying recipes, the goal is not to make the product fat-free, but lower in fat. Following are substitution ideas.