In the world full of stress and junk food it is hard to feel relaxed and eat healthy. However, it is not impossible. More and more people try to implement healthier foods in their daily meals. Making our foods healthier doesn’t have to mean sacrificing the flavor. Preparing your own meals with carefully chosen ingredients is the best way to make sure you are doing it right. There are so many ways we can eat healthy and tasty meals. You can use simple ingredients as substitutes for less healthy ones. Just to begin with, here are 10 Healthy Replacements You Can Make in Your Kitchen.
1. Vanilla for Sugar
You feel like preparing some tasty cookies? Cut up to 400 calories by cutting half of the sugar and adding just 1 spoon of vanilla. The best thing is that the cookies will taste even better with the vanilla flavor!
2. Evaporated skim milk for cream
Although the evaporated skim milk tends to have just a bit more sugar than cream – it is a fact that it contains significantly less fat which is so important. It is easy to replace this two ingredients as you do it 1:1, or 1 cup of evaporated skim milk equals 1 cup of cream.
3. Stevia for Sugar
To be honest – Stevia is expensive, but the fact that it contains Zero calories is worth it! Be careful when using this healthy sugar substitute as it is 300 times sweeter than sugar. 1 cup of sugar equals 1 teaspoon of liquid Stevia or 2 teaspoons of powder Stevia.
4. Olive Oil for Butter
Next time you are frying some eggs use Extra Virgin Olive Oil instead of butter and you’ll cut on some major amount of saturated fat. Plus, you’ll be getting those essential omega-3 fatty acids that Olive Oils contains.
5. Two egg whites for one whole egg
Bye bye cholesterol! Instead of using a whole egg, replace the egg yolk with another egg white and cut down all that cholesterol while adding more proteins. If the recipe contains more eggs, you can keep some of the yolks for the vitamins that they contain, but switch the rest of them for egg whites.
6. Greek yogurt for sour cream
Non fat Greek Yogurt not only contains half the fat and calories than regular sour cream, it offers extra dose of lean protein and tastes even better than sour cream. Once you use it, it will become your favorite.
7. Sweet potato fries for French fries
You don’t need to completely give up on french fries – just use sweet potatoes instead of regular white ones next time you fry them. Sweet potatoes contain extra fiber, vitamins B6, A and C plus it cuts 20 grams of carbohydrates per one-cup serving.
8. Garlic powder for salt
We are well aware how unhealthy salt is.Garlic powder can really add flavor to your meals without adding sodium. Combine it with your favorite seasoning herbs.
9. Kale chips for potato chips
We’ve already talked about what a superfood Kale is, but you will be even more surprised what a great chips substitute it can be. Toss some Kale leafs in olive oil and some seasonings and bake them for a tasty and low in calories chips snack.
10. Ground Turkey for ground beef
Using ground turkey (or even chicken) instead of ground beef in recipes is such a smart choice as it cuts on saturated oils and calories. Just have in mind that turkey is drier than beef so you can add a few tablespoons of chicken stock to solve the problem.