Tweak Recipes to Make Them
Healthier
So, you’re doing your
best to feed your family a whole foods diet. Great. The
problem is, most of your cookbooks feature recipes that are
less than healthy. Do you throw them all out?
That’s not necessary.
With a few tweaks you can dramatically improve the
healthfulness of your recipes. Just keep the following tips
in mind.
1) Replace white
with brown
If your recipes call for
white flour, replace it with whole grain flour. For muffins
and breads, it will be necessary for you to add more liquid
to the recipe. If replacing all of the white flour with
whole grain makes the final product too heavy, buy whole
wheat pastry flour at the health food store, or experiment
with alternative grains like spelt, oat, buckwheat and other
flours.
The same goes for pasta
and rice. Use brown rice instead of white to put more fiber
and vitamins in the finished product. Since brown rice takes
twice as long to cook, you may have to steam it before
adding it to casseroles and other dishes in order not to
overcook the other ingredients. You will also have to add
more liquid to the recipe to compensate.
Thankfully there are
many whole grain pastas available on the market now. These
have a delicious nutty flavor and add a nice mouthfeel to
the recipe. Be sure to cook these pastas “al dente” for best
results.
2) Watch your
fats
Many older cookbooks
feature margarine and canola oils in recipes. These are
inferior to higher quality fats such as organic butter
(especially from pasture raised, grass fed cows), flax,
coconut and olive oil. Fake fats contain hydrogenated oils
and an unhealthy ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 fatty acids.
Ideally your balance of Omega 6 to Omega 3 should be one to
one. Eating too many cheap salad oils such as canola and soy
and margarine may explain the rise of such diseases as
asthma, heart disease, cancer, autoimmune and other diseases
because they lead to inflammation in the body.
Replacing these inferior
fats with higher quality, nutritive fats is one easy way to
help your family eat healthier without them really noticing
it.
3) Cut the
sugar
You can often cut the
sweetener in a dessert or snack recipe by one third to one
half without sacrificing the taste too much. The next time
you make homemade cookies for the kids, reduce the sugar by
one third and see if they notice. Replacing white flour with
Sucanat (dried cane syrup) or Rapadura is also a way to
reduce the refined sweeteners. Honey, brown rice syrup and
agave nectar are also superior to white sugar because they
have some vitamins and minerals to fortify the body. Honey
in particular is good for your immune system and contains
important enzymes.
4) Make mine
grassfed
There is still much
debate about whether vegetarian diets are
superior to omnivorous but one thing is
sure: where your meat and animal products come from is very
important. Pasture raised, grassfed animals are far
healthier and leaner than their factory farmed peers. Eggs
from free roaming chickens are tastier and much more
nutritious than conventional as well. All pastured animal
products have more vitamin A and D and healthy essential
fatty acids as well as less bad
cholesterol.
Make an effort to locate
local farms and buy your meat from people committed to
feeding their animals their native diets and treating them
humanely. You may find that you spend a little more money
but not much, especially since you’ll likely be buying your
meat in bulk. It’s worth the small investment. The taste
can’t be beat either.
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