Cutting fat from you diet seems to be a popular trend – be it to lose weight or boost your wellness – but not only is this a dismal way to live your life; cutting fat is unnecessary and even ill-advised. Your wellbeing depends on healthy fats – without them, you can’t absorb your essential vitamins and minerals. Still, you may need to reduce the amount of unhealthy fat you eat, so how do you do so without sacrificing flavour?
1. Get the right equipment.
With the right pots and pan, lower fat cooking can be a breeze. What you’re looking for is non-stick, as these pans only require a little cooking spray, or else you can sauté in wine, water, or 100% juice. Whether you’re baking, grilling, sautéing, or even making soup, having non-stick hardware is an absolute must.
2. Use the right techniques.
To stay thin naturally, there’s one philosophy you need to follow; bake, broil, grill, poach, or sauté foods instead of deep-frying or cooking in fat. With the right know-how, you can enjoy all the unhealthy foods you love but without any of the guilt. For example, you can get your deep-fried chicken fix by dipping a skinless chicken breast in low-fat buttermilk, rolling it in whole-grain crushed cereal and baking it in the oven until it’s crispy and crunchy.
3. Make the right substitutions.
You don’t need to eliminate fats, you just need to substitute here and there. When making casseroles, replace some of the fats with naturally sweet carrots, or replace half the fat in muffins and cakes with applesauce or fruit puree.
4. Find the right cuts.
You should only use lean cuts of meat, and even then you should trim all the fat you can see before you start to cook. When using mince, it should be at least 95% lean – why not try replacing a third of your minced beef with minced turkey breast?
5. Consume the right dairy.
As you can probably work out for yourself, choosing non-fat or low-fat milk is lower in fat and calories that whole milk. However, reduced fat doesn’t necessarily mean that the item is low-fat, it just means there’s 25% less than usual. Also, use low-fat buttermilk in your recipes instead of whole milk and pick evaporated milk instead of condensed milk, as the latter is heavily sweetened with sugar.
6. Eat the right part of the egg.
The yolk contains most of the fat and cholesterol in the whole egg, so stick with the albumen (the white part of the egg) where possible. This means using the egg whites of two eggs where you would usually use one egg, but you’ll slash your intake of fat, cholesterol, and calories by doing so.
7. Choose the right crackers.
Crackers can seem like a healthy snack, especially when topped with pate and a few veggies, but many are made using “hydrogenated” or trans fats. To make your post-dinner cheese and crackers more healthy, choose crackers with “whole grain” or “whole wheat” as the first ingredient.
8. Fill your plate with the right ratios.
It’s likely that you’re eating more than enough carbs or protein, and not enough vegetables, so swap it over! For example, if you normally get a large steak, chips and a side salad, have a small steak, large salad and a baked potato with salsa. If all else fails, use the plate method; fill half your plate with vegetables, a quarter with carbs and another quarter with meat. This will give you the perfect portions every time, and keep your proportions perfect too.