Clever Cooking: Your guide to adapting recipes

Once you get into the swing of it, making healthy food choices is easy. This guide will help you adapt your favourite recipes and make the right choices with the food you eat.

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How to reduce fat

Fat in the diet is essential for good health. However, too much fat can contribute to you being overweight, developing heart disease and some cancers. On average, Australians consume around 50 percent more fat than is considered healthy.

When adapting recipes, you can use the same quantity of a low-fat ingredient to replace a high-fat ingredient – and save on calories and fat. You can also prepare and cook foods in ways that reduce fat content.

Ingredient	Alternative
Full cream milk	Skim milk
Yoghurt	Low-fat yoghurt
Cream	Skim evaporated milk Low-fat ricotta cheese blended with skim milk
Coconut milk/cream	Low-fat coconut milk Low-fat evaporated milk with coconut essence
Sour cream	Low-fat natural yoghurt Buttermilk Low-fat ricotta cheese blended with low-fat yoghurt
Cream cheese	Low-fat cream cheese Low-fat ricotta cheese
Cheddar cheese	Use low-fat varieties in smaller servings Use 1 Tbsp of parmesan cheese to replace half a cup of full-fat cheddar cheese as it has a stronger flavour, so you need less
Chicken	Remove the skin Control portion sizes (100g, uncooked, per person without bones, 200 g with bones)
Meat	Trim all visible fat Choose lean cuts Control portion sizes (100 g, uncooked, per person)
Bacon	Trim off all the fat Use lean ham or mid-eye bacon instead Use 97 per cent fat-free varieties
Butter, margarine	Choose low-fat spreads Use apple puree in baking to keep cakes moist
Oil	Cooking spray Use apple puree in baking to keep cakes moist
Mayonnaise	Low-fat natural yoghurt Low-fat or no-fat mayonnaise

How to reduce sugar

It’s not a sin to occasionally enjoy sugary foods. The problem is that Australians consume, on average, around 40 kg of refined sugar each year, or some 22 teaspoons everyday. Only 25 percent is added sugar. The rest is hidden in processed food products such as soft drinks, confectionery, biscuits, cakes, sauces, canned fruits, icecream, jelly and breakfast cereals.

On average, sugar contributes an extra 440 calories each day – enough to make the difference between a person being normal or overweight. Reduce sugar in your cooking and save calories!