Friday, September 25, 2009

Learn How To Have A Low Fat Diet

By Fiona Wyresdle

Low fat cooking is a great way to change your life to becoming a healthier you. The first to step to switching to low fat cooking is making sure you have low fat food products to cook with. There are some great low fat recipes that should be used. Low fat food should not be bland and your low fat cooking should use plenty of herbs, seasonings and spices.

The first step to using low fat cooking is to replace all of the high fat foods in your kitchen with low fat alternative. Some good low fat food product choices include oils, canned fish, canned fruits and vegetables, legumes and grains, pasta, soups and stocks, herbs, spices, seasonings, whole grain breads, dried fruits, seeds, nuts, maple syrup, honey, pretzels, popcorn, applesauce, and fat free/sugar free pudding.

Food items that are high in fat and should be avoided or only eaten sparingly include white bread, coffee creamer, potato chips, corn chips, items with partially hydrogenated on the label, sugary cereals, cheese sauces, pancake mix, gravy mixes, flavored pasta, rice mixes, macaroni and cheese, creamed soups, chowders, canned meats, oil packed tuna and other fish, shortening, regular mayonnaise and oil based dressings.

There are many other foods that contain fat of which you may be unaware. While whole milk has plenty of calcium and other important nutrients it also is high in fat. In order to reduce the fat in milk enough you would need to change to drinking at minimum 1% milk though skim milk is the best. Other dairy products should also be low fat if possible as cheese and regular yogurt can have a lot of fat.

Butter and margarine are full of fat and margarine is full of Trans fat. If you still want to use products like butter or margarine try liquid spreads that have no Trans fat or products that blend oils with the butter. Eggs have a lot of cholesterol but they are choke full of good nutrients and vitamins. Instead of using whole eggs, use egg white or egg substitutes and keep your use of whole eggs to a minimum.

Eggs also are good for you but the yolks can be very fattening. You should try to use egg whites or egg substitutes instead of whole eggs. Try to use whole eggs sparingly.

Meat also needs to be lean and there are options you can use instead of eating very fatty meat. Beef hamburgers and hotdogs have a lot of fat and contain high levels of salt. Instead of these items you can have turkey dogs and vegetarian burgers. One of the leanest cuts of meat is pork tenderloin. Chicken instead of beef is also a good option.

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