Healthy Substitutions

Easy, Healthy Food Substitutions

I wanted to share 24 of my favorite substitutions from Health Magazine.

1. Always substitute whole wheat bread for regular sourdough, ciabatta, white. Or anything that is not whole wheat or whole grain

2. Always use low fat or fat free milk instead of full fat milk

3. Try to use low fat cheeses instead of full fat, regular cheese

4. Baked potato or tortilla chips instead of regular, fried!

5. Whole wheat, whole grain cereal with at least 3g fiber per serving instead of …No cocoa puffs or lucky charms

6. Carrot sticks or a salad instead of fries

7. Laughing Cow Cheese instead of cream cheese!

8. Veggie burgers or turkey burgers instead of regular full fat, beef burgers

9. Refried vegetarian, low fat black beans instead of regular refried beans

10. Fat free sour cream instead of regular

11. Ketchup & mustard instead of mayo, dressings, oil, vinegar.

12. Hummus as a spread in sandwiches instead of cream cheese, mayo, mixed creamy spreads, etc.

13. Honey, brown sugar instead of refined white sugar (or if you’re trying to cut calories – Splenda instead of Equal or any sweetner with Aspartame)

14. Diet soda or sparkling flavored water instead of regular sugary soda

15. Fat free salad dressings or a tiny bit (1-2 tsp) of olive oil/vinegar/salt/pepper instead of regular creamy salad dressing

16. Broth based soups (tomato, vegetable stock, etc.) instead of cream based soups

17. Red wine instead of hard alcohol/mixed drinks (1 glass of red has ~100 calories compared to 300-500 in mixed drinks!)

18. White meat (chicken, turkey, fish) instead of red meat (beef, lamb, pork)

19. Whole wheat couscous instead of regular, or brown rice instead of white rice

20. Regular Oatmeal instead of pre-sweetened,sugary oatmeal or cream of wheat (you can make your regular oatmeal flavorful on your own with dried fruits, nuts, brown sugar, honey, fresh fruits!)

21. Use soy milk or yogurt in smoothies instead of frozen yogurt or ice cream

22. Fage non fat Greek yogurt instead of sweetened yoplait (1 container of sweetned Yoplait can have up to 200 calories, 1 container of Fage sweetened with splenda will have only 90-100 calories and TONS more protein!)

23. Baked sweet potatoes, yams instead of regular potatoes

24. Olive or canola oil instead of other cooking oils (and I only use a very tiny amount! no more than 1 Tbsp in most recipes)