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Friday, December 6, 2013

10 Holiday Cooking Tips



1.     Limit (avoid?) appetizers—you can easily take in a meal’s worth of calories in stuffed mushrooms, cheese, crackers, nuts and dips.  Chew gum while you cook or brush your teeth beforehand so you are less likely to nibble.

2.     Start the meal with a low fat soup (fluid fills up your stomach)

3.     Make at least two non-starchy vegetable dishes (so you can fill half your plate)
·      Roasted broccoli, Brussels sprouts or cauliflower adds a unique twist on “common” foods. http://www.eatingwell.com/healthy_cooking /healthy_cooking_101/shopping_cooking_guides/vegetable_roasting_guide

4.     Consider limiting simple carbohydrate-based foods.  Do you really need mashed potatoes and stuffing and sweet potato casserole and macaroni and cheese and dinner rolls?  Choose a couple of family favorites and save the others for a different holiday meal.

5.     Don’t over-do it on variety.  More options = more calories.  Your palate doesn’t get “bored”

6.     Seek out healthy (but delicious) substitutions
·      Mashed cauliflower
·      Vegetable (not bread) based stuffing
·      Fresh herbs and roasted garlic rather than butter and salt to add flavor
·      Lower sugar desserts

7.     Leave the food in the kitchen, not on the table.  If anyone wants seconds, they can get up and go get some, but it’s less tempting if it’s less available.

8.     Cancel your membership to the clean plate club, and let others do the same.  It’s easy for our eyes to be bigger than our stomach at this time of year.  It can end up as “waste” or “on your waist.”  You decide.

9.     Resist the urge to make multiple desserts – stick to one and sensible portions

10. Send leftovers home with others.  Stock up on “Gladware” and get it out of the house

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