Cooking It Up Tasty: Heart Healthy Cooking Choices

Healthy Cooking as part of heart health takes a little planning and part of planning is looking at recipes. Some of your standbys may be perfect, with a little healthy cooking modification. As you look over your recipe, decide what to ingredient to change and how to change it. Make notes of any changes, so you can refer to them the next time you prepare the food. When you begin heart healthy cooking, you may have to make the recipe a few times, adjusting each time, before you get the results you want. It is well worth the effort! You will enjoy tasty and healthy recipes using heart healthy cooking for years to come.

To achieve heart healthy cooking, with most recipes, you can reduce the amount of fat, sugar and sodium in the original recipe without losing the flavor. How much can you leave out without affecting the flavor and consistency of the food? Use the following as a guide for heart healthy cooking and healthy eating.

FAT

SUGAR

SODIUM

For baked goods, use half the butter, shortening or oil and replace the other half with unsweetened applesauce, mashed banana or prune puree. May need to reduce baking time by 25%.

Reduce the amount of sugar by one-third to one-half. When you use less sugar, add spices such as cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg or flavorings such as vanilla extract or almond flavoring to enhance the sweetness of the food.

Reduce salt by one-half in baked goods that don't require yeast. For foods that require yeast, don't reduce the amount of salt, which is necessary for leavening. For most main dishes, salads, soups and other foods, however, you can reduce the salt by one-half

Use 1⁄4 less liquid oil or solid fat called for in the recipe. If recipe calls for 1 cup use 3⁄4 cup. If recipe uses 1⁄4 cup shortening, use 3 Tablespoons oil. Use equal amounts of oil for melted shortening, margarine or butter.

Use pureed fruit or berries, no sugar added applesauce, or sugar-free syrup in place of syrup.

Leave the salt shaker at the store

Use skim milk, 1% milk, evaporated skim milk, fat-free half and half, or plain soymilk with calcium instead of whole milk, half and half or evaporated milk.

Use plain yogurt with fresh fruit slices or use light versions of yogurt.

Choose frozen vegetables without sauces or use no-salt added canned goods. Rinsing canned vegetables will help reduce sodium.

Substitute low fat sour cream, buttermilk, nonfat plain yogurt, or 0% or 1% Greek yogurt, 1% cottage cheese, part Skim Ricotta cheese and reduced fat cheeses for full fat versions.

Decrease or eliminate sugar when canning or freezing fruits or buy unsweetened frozen fruit or fruit canned in its own juice, water, or light syrup.

Use salt-free seasonings and spice mixes. Use herbs, spices, lemon juice, or vinegar to flavor food instead of salt. Seasonings high in sodium include catsup, chili sauce, bouillon cubes, barbecue sauce, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and meat tenderizers.

Use low-fat or nonfat cream cheese, Neufchatel or low-fat cottage cheese pureed until smooth instead of full-fat cream cheese.

Use low sodium broth or the cooking water from cooking/steaming vegetables.

Use cooking methods such as bake, boil, broil, grill, poach, roast, or stir-fry. When browning, or sautéing foods use cooking spray, water, broth or nonstick pans.

Choose leaner cuts of meat or ground meat- aim for 3 grams fat/ounce. 

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