Healthy Eating: Trans Fat-Free Shortenings
Thinking of making holiday cake or cookies with your old family recipes? Chances are your favorites are made with vegetable shortening, a major source of dangerous trans fats. We tested new trans fat-free shortenings from Spectrum Organic Products and Crisco; both gave us sweet, soft cookies just like the originals. Spectrum Organic shortening costs $3.79 for a 17-ounce tub in natural food supermarkets; Crisco 0 Grams Trans Fat shortening is $3 for three premeasured sticks or $2.29 for a 1-pound can in supermarkets.
Holiday Sparklers
Offer your diet-conscious guests a bubbly drink with no alcohol calories and one-third the sugar in sodas. R.W. Knudsen’s new Spritzer Lights blend sparkling water with 24 to 27 percent fruit juice and come in five flavors, including Mango and Black Cherry.Each 12-ounce can has just 60 calories (versus 155 in 12-ounce colas) and 13 to 14 g of fruit sugar (versus 40 g of added sugar in colas). $3.59 to $4.99 for a six-pack at natural food stores and supermarkets.
Gourmet Turkey Web Site
Thirty chefs offer luscious healthy eating alternatives to the season’s usual roasted turkey, such as Turkey Bouillabaisse, Picadillo Tostadas, and Turkey Medallions, on the Web site of the National Turkey Federation.(Some recipes need to be cut down to family size.) Turkey is a good source of iron, zinc, phosphorus, potassium, and B vitamins and has moderate levels of fat and saturated fat. In addition to viewing healthy eating recipes, the Web site also offers helpful step-by-step demonstrations of turkey preparation.
Turkey the Lazy Way
One-third of us buy take-out turkey on holidays, report National Restaurant Association surveys. So Prevention scoured the US and found two brands of precooked, take-out turkey that passed our healthy eating taste tests and that you should be able to buy just about anywhere: Butterball and Jennie-O. If not, ask your supermarket deli manager. You’ll pay about $4 more per pound but save many hours of work. And if you add a little parsley and serve it with flair, no one will know you didn’t baste all day.
Making Healthy Eating Choices
If you’re watching your weight, these simple healthy eating substitutions will help you stick to your diet while enjoying a great holiday meal.
