Shopping

Shopping the Healthy Exchanges Way

Sometimes, as part of the cooking demonstration, I take the group on a field trip to the nearest supermarket. There's no better place to share my discoveries about which healthy products taste best, which are best for you, and which healthy products don't deliver enough taste to include in my recipes.

     While I'd certainly enjoy accompanying you to your neighborhood store, we'll have to settle for a field trip on paper. I've tasted and tried just about every fat- and sugar-free product on the market, but so many new ones keep coming out all the time, you're going to have to learn to play detective on your own. I've turned label reading into an art, but often the label doesn't tell me everything I need to know.

     Sometimes you'll find, as I have, that the product with no fat doesn't provide the taste satisfaction you require; other times, a no-fat or low-fat product just doesn't cook up the same way as the original product. And some foods, including even the leanest meats, can't eliminate all the fat. That's okay, though--a healthy diet should include anywhere from 15 to 25 percent of total calories from fat on any given day.

     Take my word for it--your supermarket is filled with lots of delicious foods that can and should be part of your healthy diet for life. Come, join me as we check it out on the way to the checkout!

     First stop, the salad dressing aisle. Salad dressing is usually a high-fat food, but there are great alternatives available. Let's look first at the regular Ranch dressing--2 tablespoons have 170 calories and 18 grams of fat--and who can eat just 2 tablespoons? Already, that's about half the fat grams most people should consume in a day. Of course, it's the most flavorful too. Now let's look at the low-fat version. Two tablespoons have 110 calories and 11 grams of fat; they took about half the fat out, but there's still a lot of sugar there. The fat-free version has 50 calories and zero grams of fat, but they also took most of the flavor out. Here's what you do to get it back: add a tablespoon of fat-free mayonnaise, a few more parsley flakes, and about half teaspoon of sugar substitute to your two-tablespoon serving. That trick, with the fat-free mayo and sugar substitute, will work with just about any fat-free dressing and give it more of the full bodied flavor of the high-fat version. Be careful not to add too much sugar substitute--you don't want it to become sickeningly sweet.

     I even use Kraft fat-free mayonnaise at 10 calories per tablespoon to make scalloped potatoes. The Smart Beat brand is also a good one.

     Before I buy anything at the store, I read the label carefully: the total fat plus the saturated fat; I look to see how many calories are in a realistic serving, and I say to myself, would I eat that much--or would I eat more? I look at the sodium and I look at the total carbohydrates. I like to check those ingredients because I'm cooking for diabetics and heart patients, too. And I check the total calories from fat.

     Remember that 1 fat gram equals 9 calories, while 1 protein or 1 carbohydrate gram equals 4 calories.