How to Reduce Fat in Home Cooked Recipes

Lifetime Television premiered their new series, Cooking Yourself Thin, with three qualified hosts teaching guests and viewers waistline sparing tips while cooking healthy and delicious meals. The show hosts motivate viewers to adopt healthy, low fat cooking techniques to use in their home cooking, with the theory of cutting the fat while doubling the flavor. Food should be fun, flavorful and something the family looks forward to. Following are some tips from the first two episodes of Cooking Yourself Thin on Lifetime TV.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Shop for lean cuts of meat and cook them properly. Brown the meat in wine or water for maximum flavor and drain off the meat fat before adding to recipes.

2. Use a sliced avocado on sandwiches instead of sandwich spread. The avocado does add fat, but it is healthy fat and the avocado contains healthy nutrients, versus the empty calories in sandwich spread.

3. Use lots of garlic in recipes where appropriate. Garlic has no fat, adds lots of flavor and also contains healthy antioxidants.

4. Cut back on cheese in recipes. Many recipes overload on cheeses. You can probably half the amount of cheese in a recipe and keep the cheese flavor while cutting the fat and calories in the meal.

5. Substitute vegetables for meat in recipes when possible. Try making a vegetable lasagna with a reduced amount of cheese instead of a rich meat lasagna loaded with thick layers of mozzarella.

6. Add flavor with spices, to make meals more exciting. Pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, ginger and herbs all add flavor without adding calories. Whatever your favorite spice is, make sure to have it on hand to add to recipes.

Tips & Warnings

• In formation is not intended as medical or dietary advice. If you have questions about an appropriate diet, consult a physician.