Healthy alternative ingredients that actually taste good

There is no need to avoid that Paula Dean recipe that calls for four sticks of butter. There are plenty of healthy alternatives that you can use in recipes for the same taste with fewer calories, less fat, and less cholesterol. Enjoy guilt-free meals by knowing some of the kitchen’s most noteworthy substitutes.

Stocking your apartment pantry with guilt-free substitutes is the key for cooking healthy and not feeling limited. There is nothing worse than realizing that you don’t have what you need mid-preparation, so it’s a good idea to keep these items at hand.

Butter One of the hardest tastes and textures to mimic is butter. You can begin by using light or whipped butters, which have less fat and fewer calories. For an even healthier alternative, you can use 7/8 cup vegetable oil plus 1/2 teaspoon salt for every cup of butter needed in the recipe. Using vegetable oil minimizes the amount of cholesterol. You can also use a cup-for-cup measurements for margarine but be sure to select margarines with low LDL cholesterol levels like Benecol and Promise Activ.

Sugar With all of the advertisements that you see on TV, you would think that there is large nutritional differences between sugar and sugar substitutes. There isn’t. There are a few calories variances but the sweeteners also have their own disadvantages. In my opinion, you should just stick to sugar but use less. “In many recipes, you can decrease the amount of sugar by one third without affecting the quality of the product,” recommends Allrecipies.com. You can also try an equal exchange of brown sugar or 3/4 cup honey.

Bleached Flour “Bleached” and food simply shouldn’t be in the same sentence. When it comes to grain, bleaching destroys Vitamin E and other nutritional properties. Bleaching isn’t evil but it isn’t life enhancing, either. Bleaching and other aging techniques improve the elasticity of dough (fewer crumbs after baking). So what?! It’s bread. Use unbleached flour and enjoy your baked good with Vitamin E and a napkin nearby.

Lard Anything is better than lard (maybe not motor oil but…). Use an equal portion of butter or shortening. If you want to be even healthier, you can uses 7/8 cup of vegetable oil.