Alternatives to Your Favorite Foods When You Are on a Diet

Have you ever been on a diet?

If yes, then you know what the main problem is! Giving up almost all foods that make you lusty just when you look at them; hamburgers, cakes, sauces, mayonnaise and ice cream, all are delicious and very tempting.

You have that horrible feeling that you gave up all culinary pleasures and delights. Well, not necessarily! You need just a few little tricks to turn your favorite dishes in healthy versions.

The people from the Eating Well website came with a solution after they tested several recipes.

So they turned hamburgers in light versions of the original, right to eat every day and cookies in cakes with more fiber.

We do not stuff our hands in the fire that these are the healthiest possible, but they have less fat, sugar, and calories than others.

Creamy Sauces Without Butter or Cream

How would your pasta look like without that thick and tasty sauce, drowned in butter and cream?

It will look as good as any if instead of these two ingredients you’ll use skimmed milk thickened with flour. Mix 250 ml of milk over medium heat with four tablespoons of flour until you obtain a thick sauce.

Compared with a sauce containing cream, you’ll have few hundred calories less. For the mayonnaise from potato salads, the solution is a very light cream with shallow fat content.

Use Less Oil

However good it is, olive oil still has enough calories. So reduce the amount of olive oil you use in any cooking, including salads.

Regarding fried foods, it would be better to cut them off entirely from your dish and get accustomed with non-stick pans, grills or steam cooking.

Crunchy Without Being Fried

For some foods, you will not get a crunchy texture without using plenty of oil. So you have to learn how to use the oven correctly. (read here: Juice Fasting Questions And Answers)

If you cook chicken, fish or vegetables, before you put them in the pan, soaked them in milk and beaten egg and then roll them in breadcrumbs.

Nicely place them on a baking paper and cooked them in the oven at 230C until crisp. The breadcrumbs will create that nice crispy texture without using any oil at all.

Careful With The Salt Intake

Our body needs 1-2 grams of salt daily, but very often we exceed the allowed limit.

Much of the blame goes to the foods you buy in the store. They have a high salt content to maximize the taste, or for water retention, which will make them heavier when weighted (sausages, salamis, cheese).

Therefore, when cooking, is better to be careful how much salt you use, and, when possible, even decrease the daily dose. You can use herbs or other natural spices as alternatives to salt. (read here: How Much Salt Should We Eat)

Wholemeal Flour Instead of White Flour

You can’t always use it when baking cakes, but at least some of the recipes can be adapted.

For example, the quiche dough, homemade bread, and muffins, even cookies and biscuits can be made using wholemeal flour. Not only you will have more fiber in your diet, but the amount of vitamin B, zinc and magnesium will get higher too.

Change Bad Fats in Good Fats

Some recipes seem impossible without buttercream. But at least some of them are worth trying with olive oil instead of butter. (read here: The Many Health Benefits Of Avocado)

For example, instead of using melted butter in a pan or a baking paper, use olive oil. Butter has seven times more saturated fats compared with olive oil.

Fewer Calories at Breakfast

You’ve heard that’s a trend among celebrities to ask for an egg white omelet.

We are confident that this trend comes from a nutritionist recommendation who explained that the egg white has just 0 fats and only 16 calories compared to the yolk that has 5 grams of fat and 54 calories.

Proper Diet Ice Cream

The trick proposed by Eating Well website, without losing the creamy part of ice cream, is to use semi-skimmed milk thickened with gelatine. (read also: 11 Amazing Health Benefits of Carrots)

This way you can mimic the texture of a creamy ice-cream, but you will have fewer calories and fat.

Hamburgers for Daily Consumption

For burgers, you can rely on a mixture of minced meat, brown rice, and chopped mushrooms.

This way you include whole grains and vegetables in your diet. For every 500 grams of minced beef add 150 grams of cooked brown rice and 75 grams of chopped mushrooms. These hamburgers can be eaten every day if grilled without any oil.

Do you have any ideas for healthy recipes? You can tell us how you reinvented your favorite dishes, making them much healthier, in the comments section below.

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