Newspaper Page Text
Page 6B
Wednesday, Dec. 20, 1995 Houston Times-Journal
Slimmed-down holiday meals don’t fatten you up
Extension expert believes good substitutes can reduce fats and still provide good taste
By JENNIFER CANNON
Georgia Extension Service
Cooking up a lavish holiday
meal no longer means you have
to serve fat-laden, traditional
dishes. But taste is as important
as ever.
“It’s really simple to cut down
on the amount of fat in holiday, or
any, foods,” said Connie Crawley,
a food, nutrition and health spe
cialist with the University of
Georgia Extension Service.
“Many reduced-fat and non-fat
products are available,” she said,
“to substitute into recipes to cut
the amount of fat in a dish.”
Some commercially prepared
foods use fat substitutes to cut the
fat and calories in their products,
but Crawley said those aren’t
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CWrisbmas.
Brittany
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Dear Sanf-a,
1 love you and I want- some boys.
Kl isflna Stinson
Dear Santa,
How is fHe reindeer and Mrs.
Claus? 1 will ask my Mom to leave
some cookies and milk. I Hope you
bring me a real |jve cat I asked for.
WHen my Mom calls you tell Her if
I’ve b een good or b a d. If you ever see
Jesus please ask k\im How my
Great, Great, Great,
Grandmother is and my one year
Id cat Me+is, Go to Westfield
NAIL DOWN A
GREAT HOLIDAY!
There's no place like
home for the holidays,
and we hope that
yours is filled with
love and laughter this
holiday season.
Thank you for your
building trust in us.
Gg
YCNI'BE ftlWKd
WfiICOIIE HEBE!
We just wanted to say “Merry Christmas”, and
“thanks” for calling on us this past year.
We appreciate your kind patronage.
Bank South
available for home use.
The Food and Drug
Administration closely regulates
how food processors use fat sub
stitutes in their products. Even
manufacturers are limited by the
type of substitute and how it reacts
within the food.
But home chefs have more
options to reduce fat, even in your
great-grandmother’s recipes.
“The first thing you need to do
is some experimenting ahead of
time,” Crawley said. “You don’t
want to be serving a dish that did
n’t turn out well to a crowd of
family and friends because you
didn’t have time to remake it.”
Reduced-fat products are wide
ly available for home cooks.
Cheeses of all varieties, sour
(Continued from page 5B)
offer school b reak.
Katie Deighton
Dear Sanf-a,
My name is W ill and I am A- years
old. I Think I have been a pref-fy
good boy. Whaf- I would like for
Chrisf-mas is a Toy Rob of-,
Telephone, apd some ba-f-man
bhings. My cousin Taylor lives in
Pensacola, Florida hes been preF~
Py good phis year also. He would
like some Barney Phings. Please
bring his new b°by sisper Kajplyn
some Phings also. I am going Po
leave you some goodies and Rudolph
a carrop under Phe Pree.
Mso, don’P drive poo fasp and
(See LETTERS, Page 7B)
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cream, whipped toppings and con
densed soups all come in reduced
fat or non-fat versions. Crawley
said the reduced-fat products work
better than nonfat products in
cooked dishes.
“A little fat helps the product
melt more evenly and smoothly,”
she said.
“But for toppings or dressings,
nonfat products work well. A may
onnaise-dressing salad, for exam
ple, could be prepared substituting
half reduced-fat mayonnaise and
half plain yogurt for the regular
mayonnaise. This must be pre
pared and mixed just before serv
ing it may separate if it stands
for more than an hour.
Often, though, the fat-laden
product amount can be reduced or
left out of the recipe altogether,
Crawley said.
“Butter can be left out of many
recipes totally,” she said. In
casseroles, vegetable dishes or
recipes which call for a tablespoon
or less, try substituting butter-fla
vored granules.
Crawley said butter acts as a
flavor in those recipes, not as a
necessary part of the dish.
In baked goods, though, butter,
shortening or oil acts as a tender
izer or texturizer.
“It has to be there for the dish
to turn out correctly,” she said,
“but you can often reduce the
amount of fat in it with some
‘Bob Tribble
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Our turn fs mur you mo your
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experimentation.”
Sometimes cooks can reduce
the amount of fat in a recipe by
one-quarter to one-third without
affecting the outcome of the
dish.
This is especially true for quick
breads. Crawley said each cook
needs to experiment with each
recipe to determine how much fat
can be left out and still produce a
satisfactory dish.
Oils, shortening and butter or
margarine all contain 100 percent
fat at nine calories per gram, but
not all fats act the same in the
body.
For day-to-day table use,
Crawley said, soft-tub, reduced fat
margarines are best.
“They contain as much fat as
reduced-fat stick margarine,” she
said, “but not as much trans-fatty
acid.”
Trans-fatty acids result from a
process called hydrogenation
which makes liquid fats more
solid.
These fatty acids act more like
saturated fats in the body and may
increase your risk for heart dis
ease.
But reduced-fat soft margarine
doesn’t perform as well in baked
goods. So Crawley recommends
using reduced-fat stick margarine
for baking and reduced-fat tub
margarine for the table.
Besides testing recipes with
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lower-fat ingredients, there is one
other secret: “Keep it a secret,”
Crawley said. “If you don’t tell
your family or friends you used
reduced-fat or nonfat ingredients,
chances are they won’t taste the
difference and will be a little
healthier for not knowing.”
(Jennifer Cannon is a news edi
tor with the University of Georgia
Extension Service.)
Hope Ifs Noteworthy!
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