Healthy Food Substitutes the Family Will Never Notice
September 16, 2011
•Le Cordon Bleu
•Orlando
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Healthy Food Substitutes the Family Will Never Notice
Nothing ruins a great family meal faster than that scary little phrase “it’s so healthy.” The children immediately lose their excitement and more than a few eyebrows raise. Perhaps the trick is finding health substitutes that no one will ever suspect or notice at all. Try a few of these substitution suggestions and chances are you will be the only one who will know the difference. Healthy things don’t have to taste horrible, now it’s easy to show the whole family…even though you may want to wait until after dinner to announce your little secret.
Replace Salt with Herbs, Lemon Juice and Spices
Salt is often used as the go-to seasoning of choice when something needs a little flavor, but diets rich in salt have been linked to things like hypertension and osteoporosis. Instead of reaching for that salt shaker, why not try to fill the void with natural and healthy alternatives? At first you may want to try this technique with recipes that you lightly season with salt. If salt is a large part of the recipe ordinarily, you may notice a more obvious difference in taste.
Replace Ice Cream with Sorbet and Sherbet
If the kids “scream for ice cream,” try getting a tasty natural sorbet or sherbet instead. If they like a fruity flavor like strawberry ice cream for example, try getting all natural fruit blends and they will surely be satisfied. Sorbet and sherbet have the same refreshing taste of ice cream with far less of the stuff you don’t want your kids having like excess fat and calories.
Replace Sour Cream with Low-Fat Yogurt
If you think about it, sour cream and yogurt tend to have a similar consistency and fortunately this similarity also translates into what it adds to the entrée as well. Keep it simple with a plain flavored non-fat or low-fat yogurt and there will be such a slight difference that it will hardly be noticeable.
Replace Oil or Butter with Applesauce
This is one great secret for baking. Many recipes for baked goods, like muffins, cookies or pies, call for a large amount of butter. Apple sauce is a low-fat way to have the finished product come out just as great as the original version. Generally a whole stick of butter can be replaced with a half cup of applesauce in most recipes and one cup of olive oil can be replaced by one cup of applesauce.
This article is presented by Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Orlando. Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Orlando offers culinary arts and pâtisserie and baking training programs in Orlando, Florida. To learn more about the class offerings, please visit Chefs.edu/Orlando for more information.
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