Restaurant Recipe Reviews

Nutrition is something that many people do not adequately comprehend. The idea that fats are bad, or carbs are bad, or that protein will make you skinny have become fads that people follow, and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. The measure of success is usually weight loss, which can be misleading. Becoming healthier isn’t about how to reduce fat in your diet, it’s about how to eat healthier overall.

Edible fats come in two major categories. Unsaturated fats are mostly plant-based, and saturated fats usually come from animal products, though a couple of major exceptions must be noted. Saturated fat is generally considered bad for you, and something to be avoided as much as possible. Unsaturated fat is essential for human life, and in the proper quantities, reduces cholesterol, protects the heart, and otherwise improves health.

Unsaturated fats can be found in plant products, and in fish. Though excess quantities of this type of fat will cause you to gain weight and thus can be detrimental to your health, eating a bit of unsaturated fat on a regular basis is important. Most unsaturated fat is liquid at room temperature (oil).

Moving away from saturated fats towards unsaturated ones can help keep you healthy. These substitutions include things like replacing high-fat salad dressings with a dairy source (mostly saturated fats) with vingrettes, which have a oil-based fat source (mostly unsaturated fats). Olive oil and herbs can replace a pasta dish with alfredo sauce, when you are having a craving for fats, as well.

Although fat is necessary for life, humans like their fat and generally eat too much of it. Fats are high in calories, containing more than twice as many as the same amount of a protein or carbohydrate food. Reducing the amount of fat you eat can thus be considered healthy, though it is not quite as simple as that.

If you choose to purchase lower fat versions of foods from the store, read the labels carefully. A lot of times, the low-fat version has replaced the fat with sugar, which may or may not decrease the calories, but probably isn’t any better for you. Eating excessive amounts of sugar has been implicated in just as many future health issues as overeating fats, including some of the same ones.

Making homemade lower-fat foods can be a great way to eat better, though. The first thing to do is experiment with a favorite recipe. Reduce the fat by a third and see how it turns out. Often, baked goods can be altered this way with little difference in taste. Applesauce can be used for volume and texture, if you want to reduce the fat further, or are working from an originally high-fat recipe where one-third less fat makes a significant volume difference.

For non-baked goods, consider herbs and spices as replacements for fat. Less fatty food is less interesting to the human tastebuds, so making it more flavorful with spices, herbs, and garnishes can make the meal a better success. Just remember– eating healthy is about balancing your diet, not demonizing one group or another as always bad or always good.

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