Holiday Eating!

The holidays are once again upon us and as usual, we all contemplate the best way to get through the season without adding additional lbs.

There are a few helpful hints which can assist in cutting calories without denying yourself the holiday favorites you look forward to indulging in all year.

First off, it’s best to limit holiday meal side-dishes to ½ cup servings.  Although the green bean casserole sounds healthy and chock-full of green vegetables, by the time you add the creamy sauce & fried onions, your calorie intake skyrockets!

Aside from portion control, here are a few other helpful hints you can use:

Substitutions:

By replacing 1/3 of the sweet potatoes for cooked carrots in your sweet potato casserole, you can chop the calories nearly in half!  Same idea for mashed potatoes; by taking out the butter & heavy cream and substituting margarine & skim milk, you can go ahead and have that second helping.

Believe it or not, gravy can be made a low-fat way too and that’s to forgo those turkey drippings and simply use the gravy mix with no fat turkey broth.  Nobody will ever taste the difference!!

Any easy swap for stuffing is whole grain bread versus white bread.  Again, super-easy to adjust and your guests will never know.

Lastly, when dessert comes around, don’t say no.  Just substitute the ice cream on your Apple Pie ala mode and replace with a dollop of aerated whipped cream.   Also, if you cut off the outside pie crust, that will save an additional 200 calories.

As you can see, there’s no reason to not partake in all the tasty treats of the season.  By making these simple adjustments you can go ahead and enjoy all the deliciousness the season has to offer and avoid the guilt!

Gobble Gobble!