Last month for our Healthy Mind and Bodies Group Meeting, the topic was “How to Make ANY Recipe Healthier.” I asked the ladies to bring a dish to share that they had improved by experimentation. I reassured them that the end recipe didn’t have to be 100% healthy, but just an improvement over the original. My idea was to honor the progress towards healthy eating, especially as some of our attendees have husbands or children who are resistant to any deviation from what’s usually on the dinner table.

Sometimes big steps towards better health are necessary and/or readily accepted by your family, but even small steps can eventually get your family accustomed to a better way of eating.

Here’s what we discussed:

1. Identify your goals

Are you trying to reduce added sugar? Reduce added fat? Increase nutrient density (e.g., whole grains instead of refined grains, more veggies and fruits)? Fill up with fewer calories? Encourage your family to love a greater variety of foods?

2. Recognize that palates are adaptable

You may be tempted to say, “Oh I can’t use whole grains, my kids only eat white bread,” or, “My husband is not a fan of vegetables,” or, “I just love chocolate and could never eat less of it,” …but realize you CAN change. People do it every day. I did it 2 1/2 years ago. I now love many many things I never thought I would… cooked spinach, huge salads, raw broccoli, blueberries, raw bell peppers as a snack, a bowl of unsugared strawberries for dessert… the list is long.

There are lots of families that DO eat a wide variety of very nutritious food. It’s completely possible. Even if you weren’t raised this way or haven’t always cooked this way, you can make changes NOW and in a few years you’ll be amazed how easy it is to cook and eat healthily.

Your kids will grow up thinking whole grain bread is “normal” and other bread is different.

They’ll be used to vegetables being the main attraction at dinner.

They’ll forget they ever used to eat Froot Loops for breakfast. (Which, by the way, taste nothing like fruit.)

It’s not too late to change the way your family eats. Remember that you’re teaching your children a valuable life skill: how to eat and enjoy a variety of healthy foods. When they leave the house they’ll know how to steam broccoli, make a meal out of a salad, and pack yummy flavorful lunches for school or work. McDonalds might not love you, but your kids sure will.

Not every healthier meal you make will garner a standing ovation, but you’ll hone your skills. Meals will get yummier and easier and your family’s long-term health and happiness will be more than enough reward.

3. Be Realistic

Some recipes just aren’t a good jumping off point for a healthful diet. There’s only so much you can do to make fettucine alfredo healthier.

You may find that some recipes are sacred to your family and can’t be touched. For example, Scott used to go ga-ga over my homemade macaroni and cheese when we were dating. It’s incredibly cheesy and rich and delicious. It just wouldn’t be the same if I tried to cut down the cheese, or add veggies, or go with whole wheat pasta (well, that one might slide through). So I didn’t touch that recipe. I just made it less frequently. And now? Our tastes have changed so much that I haven’t made it in over a year. Something dripping with cheese just doesn’t sound good to me any more. We would much prefer a good lentil curry. Or potato kale enchiladas with home-roasted pepper sauce. Mmmm…

My point is, start with something more neutral. Make tacos but only use refried or black beans and forget the ground beef. The next time you make them you might go with the fat-free refried beans (who needs added lard anyway?). The time after that you might try sauteeing some veggies to add to the tacos as well. You might have to chop ‘em small and mix them in with the beans at first until your family warms up to the idea. Then you might stop putting out sour cream with the tacos and put sliced green onions and squeeze lime juice over the top instead. Then you might make your own corn tortillas instead of getting fried taco shells. Then you might go with a sharper cheese to sprinkle on top, and use less of it. Then you might add chopped fresh tomatoes from your garden and fresh chopped cilantro on top. You don’t have to make all those changes, and certainly not all at once… but you might find (like we did) that after a few years, “tacos” in your family mean a very different thing than they used to mean. Instead of fried shells with beefy/cheesy/sour creamy filling, they are much more authentically Mexican with fresh ingredients and more opportunity for creativity and different flavors. Let everyone fill their own tacos, but by then you’ll only have healthy ingredients out so they can go crazy on them and still come away with lots of nutrition.

4. Rules of Thumb

As you get more accustomed to cooking healthy foods you’ll likely find that almost anything goes when it comes to COOKING. If it sounds good, chances are it’ll taste good (at least, it will after you’ve had some practice and experience working with healthy ingredients). BAKING, though, is another matter. There are definitely some ground rules to follow.

Here are some I’ve learned in my short years improving my family’s diet:

Quick Breads – Anything made with baking powder and/or soda rather than yeast is considered a quick bread. That includes pancakes, muffins, cornbread, etc.

  • Generally, you can substitute up to 1/2 whole wheat flour without much of a difference. That means if the recipe calls for 2 cups all purpose flour, you can use 1 cup all purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour. (There are other whole grain flours that may work as well, such as spelt flour, but I’ve only experimented with whole wheat.)
  • If you want to go 100% whole grain, there are several things to keep in mind. Whole wheat pastry flour is best, or if you grind your own, use one of the finest settings. The reason for this is that air keeps your baked goods light and fluffy. The finer the grind, the more air is incorporated. Consider sifting your flour again, to incorporate more air. At the minimum, always spoon your flour into the measuring cup and level off. Never scoop using the measuring cup or pack down the flour. You want as much air in there as possible!
  • You may need to use 7/8 c. whole wheat flour for 1 cup of all purpose flour, or add a bit extra liquid if you find the end product too dry. I seldom need to do this, however.
  • The #1 complaint with whole grain baked goods is the texture. They have a tendency to be dense, chewy, or heavy. In my experience, this can be avoided almost entirely by using proper technique. Always follow the recipe and combine dry ingredients together and keep wet ingredients separate. Make sure your pans are ready to go and your oven (or griddle) is preheated. Then, combine wet with dry gently and with as few strokes as possible. Pour into pans promptly and bake immediately. Overstirring develops the gluten (the stretchy strands of dough you’re used to seeing in yeast breads) and that will create a dense, chewy result. Baked goods should be light and tender. The instant you mix wet with dry, the acid and base contained in baking powder (or the base in baking soda and the acid found in the liquid ingredients) combine and start generating gas. The batter will go “flat” much like a bottle of soda pop if you don’t get it into the oven fast. You want to keep all those air bubbles safely inside the batter so the heat can expand them and give your baked goods a desirable texture.
  • Use applesauce for up to half the oil, but realize the flavor will change. I do this routinely for things like banana bread and muffins and have no problem. If you go 100% applesauce the result may be gummy. The fat from the oil contributes to the “tender” texture and it’s hard to do away with it entirely.
  • Cut down on sugar and salt by 1/2 to 1/3. I do that automatically and seldom notice a difference in the final product. I found in my recent trip to Europe that baked goods there are MUCH less sugary than they are in the US. I think our tastebuds are so slammed with sugar here that we miss out on a lot of other flavors in foods.
  • Cutting down on sugar gives us our tastebuds back and we appreciate more subtle flavors such as ground almond or sprinkled orange zest, so take advantage of that! Dress up your baked goods with something fun. Try sprinkling brown sugar on top and using less in the batter. The sweetness will be noticed and appreciated on top and you can get away with using less inside. Try adding almond extract or toasted pecans. Even adding some chocolate chips to the batter can make the healthiest muffin (packed with zucchini and whole grains) seem like a special treat.

Yeast Breads

  • You can usually use up to 1/2 whole wheat flour without any problems. Again, if you want to go all the way pay attention to technique.
  • Use regular whole wheat flour (not pastry flour) and consider adding vital wheat gluten to it. I usually add about 1/2 TBS wheat gluten per cup of flour.
  • Add a “sponge” stage to allow the flour and water to work before you mix in the rest of the flour and ingredients. I often add all the water, and an equal amount of flour and let the machine (or a spoon) do quite a bit of mixing at that point. The dough will become very stretchy and stringy and that is a good sign that the gluten is developing structure in the dough. That’ll help it rise to be tall and light. We’ll talk more about this at the March meeting, but you might also consider adding a dough conditioner. Use a medium fine grind for your wheat.
  • Do NOT eliminate salt. It’s essential to temper the yeast and make the dough rise properly.
  • You can substitute half the applesauce for oil, no worries.

Main Courses

  • Go meatless. Yes, this is a vegetarian typing, but really the more meat you can cut out of a dish the better. This is because, calorie for calorie, meat is much less nutritionally dense than any vegetable. Use half the ground beef you usually do in your spaghetti sauce. It’ll be more economical and your family won’t notice. Add extra of the other ingredients and the meat will take a backseat. It’ll be flavoring, not the main attraction.
  • Cut added salt by half; in some dishes you can even eliminate it entirely. A lot of the ingredients that you’ll use for recipes (e.g., canned tomatoes) come to your home pre-salted. You can salt stuff to taste on the table or just before serving. You’ll use less and you’ll be more conscious of it when you do add it. Most Americans are “salted out” so as you dial it back some, you’ll notice a lot of other flavors you’ve missed out on in the past.
  • Sprinkle cheese ON TOP where you’ll notice it and appreciate it rather than mixing it in with everything else. You can get away with using less this way. Consider using a sharper cheese so you’ll get more flavor with less cheese.
  • Go whole grain. Brown rice, whole wheat pasta, quinoa, whole wheat couscous, etc.
  • Don’t fry.
  • Baste with fruit juice or veggie broth rather than oil or drippings.

Snacks

  • Learn to eat healthier snacks. For example, use a good mustard or hummus for dipping or sandwiches rather than mayo or ranch dressing. Use lower fat dairy products, but watch the ingredient list. If it gets crazy-long with ingredients you’ve never heard of, try a different brand. We rarely use sour cream these days, but when we do we use low fat sour cream because we couldn’t find a nonfat sour cream that had reasonable ingredients.
  • Go with plain yogurt. Not vanilla. Not fruit. Check the Nutritional Facts on the back and you’ll be amazed how much sugar* is added to other types of yogurt. Europeans have the right idea with yogurt. Their yogurts have significantly less sugar than our American counterparts and they taste much, much, much better. The closest re-creation? Find plain yogurt and add your own fresh fruit, rolled oats, cinnamon and honey, etc.
  • Switch to a healthy peanut butter. (Costco’s has no added sugar or fat.) Consider almond butter to add variety. (Costco carries some yummy almond butter as well!)
  • Check your crackers. You don’t have to settle for ones that are “made with whole grain”. Check the back and if you don’t see whole grain as the first ingredient, find a different brand. Crackers should not have a laundry list of crazy ingredients (shame on you, Wheat Thins). Our favorites are the Trader Joe’s Woven Wheat Crackers or Triscuits.

Desserts
Ah, desserts. You are a tricky category, my friend. I don’t have The Answer about desserts for all families, but here’s the Bean philosophy:

  • Every meal doesn’t get followed up by dessert. It’s not an automatic thing or even expected. Desserts are definitely treats.
  • In an average day, nothing we eat has added sugar in it. Nothing. We tend to eat a wide variety of very simple foods (hardly anything comes from a box). This means that fresh fruit is incredibly delicious to us. Sweet and tangy and crisp and juicy and lovely in all ways. So we’ll often slice up a melon after dinner, or tuck in to a huge bowl of fresh strawberries, or defrost some frozen blackberries. We spread unsweetened applesauce on hot homemade wheat bread for a sweet treat. I like my hot bread with some cinnamon and honey on top. Baked apples with cinnamon are yummy as well.
  • We typically say “no thank you” to the vast majority of desserts at social gatherings. If we don’t absolutely love it, we don’t eat it.
  • That being said, we both have sweet tooths and there ARE desserts we absolutely love. We don’t make any attempt to make those desserts lower in fat or healthier in any way. In other words, when we do dessert… we do dessert. We can afford to buy fancy ice cream and/or use premium ingredients to make a homemade, it-only-took-8-hours, Pear Almond Tart (Scott’s project yesterday that turned out fabulously). I go crazy for dark chocolate, warm chocolate chip cookies and homemade tapioca pudding. Scott is in heaven when I make my cinnamon rolls twice a year. I really feel like we appreciate that kind of stuff more because we eat it infrequently. It’s not about deprivation or battling cravings… we just don’t keep desserts in our house and when we do indulge, we make sure it’s fantastic.

*We don’t really go for artificial sweeteners because they aren’t quite as satisfying and they still promote sugar cravings. I find when I eat a cookie, I’m more likely to want something sugary for the next meal as well. If I skip the cookie, sugary sweets are less likely to cross my mind. With artificially-sweetened stuff, it’s tempting to say “it doesn’t count” and eat it frequently… but your body gets used to eating sweet stuff all the time so you’re more likely to crave and reach for desserts.

Dishes to Share

Many women brought lovely dishes and ideas to share. Here are some of them:

  • Water-down juice. Don’t laugh! This is a really good one. My friend who brought it is pregnant and wants to stay hydrated but has a difficult time drinking a lot of straight water. So she shakes up half water half juice and drinks that and gives it to her 1 year old son as well. It’s still plenty flavorful and it gets you hydrated with half the calories.
  • Baked chicken nuggets. Two women brought these. One was breaded in crushed, multi-grain tortilla chips. The other was her kids’ favorite dish. They won’t eat fast food nuggets anymore, because they are so used to their mom’s recipe. Pretty cool. :) Here is her recipe:
    Sarah Burt’s Breaded Chicken
    Milk
    Egg
    Flour
    Crumbs (wheat bread, rice krispies, corn flakes, etc)
    Chicken

    Mix the egg and a little bit of milk together in a bowl. (The milk makes it fluffier than if you just used an egg by itself.) Put flour in a bowl (I use a pie tin) and add salt and pepper to taste. Put the crumbs in another bowl/pie tin. Roll the chicken in the flour, then the egg/milk mixture then the crumbs.

    Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 mins (boneless) or 40-45 mins (bone-in) or until no longer pink in the middle and juices run clear.

    Pan fry in olive oil.

    She uses this recipe in a variety of ways; chicken nuggets, on top of salad, as the main dish, etc. Also freezes well if done on a flat surface before cooking.

  • Chicken pot pie, made with several modifications. As I recall, the crust was 100% whole wheat, there were extra veggies inside, no extra salt added, and lower fat creamy soup inside. We also discussed the option of leaving off the bottom crust entirely.
  • Jell-o pudding pie. My friend makes all graham cracker crusts with half the amount of butter the recipe calls for. She says “They are crumbly anyway, so why not!” I didn’t taste a bit of difference. She also made the pudding with 1% milk, and other ladies say nonfat works fine.
  • Cilantro sour “cream”. It’s a chip dip or taco-topper actually made with silken tofu instead of dairy. I got the recipe from Veganomicon and actually modified it by eliminating all the grapeseed oil. So essentially, it’s just silken tofu, lime juice, garlic, honey, and tons of cilantro.
  • Cool ideas from one friend’s dinner that night: leave the skins on the mashed potatoes, sprinkle lemon juice instead of butter on green breens, used whole wheat flour instead of white flour in cornbread.
  • Sweet Potato Souffle. This recipe was modified out of necessity when my friend was running low on ingredients. It was a huge hit! I’ve shown the modified recipe here, with the original amounts in parentheses.
    Angie’s Sweet Potato Souffle
    3 c. cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
    1 tsp. vanilla
    2 TBS margarine (called for 3 TBS)
    1/4 c. sugar + 1/4 c. honey (called for a full cup sugar, no honey)
    1/2 c. rice milk (called for cow’s milk)
    1/2 tsp. salt
    2 eggs, beaten
    1/2 yogurt (called for melted margarine)
    1/2 c. brown sugar (called for a whole cup)
    1 c. coconut
    1c. chopped pecans and walnuts
    1/2 c. flour – could use whole wheat

    Mix first 7 ingredients together and put in greased 9 x 13 inch dish. Mix next 5 ingredients and sprinkle on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

  • Banana nut muffins. I took a regular recipe and overhauled it with great results. This is actually the product of a second overhaul, and they turned out beautifully as well. The original recipe was all white flour, no nuts, no applesauce, with egg and more than twice as much oil and sugar (but no sugar on top). Whenever I go whole grain on a quick bread, I always increase the baking powder by 1/3 to 1/2. I did that here and the result is a nice, light muffin. I also used applesauce for 2/3 of the oil, decreased the sugar inside the muffins by 2/3 and added a bit on top. I also boosted the cinnamon and vanilla inside and added pecans on top for flavor. Finally, I did a substitute for the egg (1 TBS flax meal + 3 TBS water).

    Beanland Banana Nut Muffins

    Preheat oven to 375 F.

    Combine in a bowl:
    2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
    1/4 tsp. salt
    2 tsp. baking powder
    1/2 tsp. baking soda
    1 TBS cinnamon

    Combine in the vitamix (or any blender) until soupy:
    2 TBS flaxseed meal
    3 TBS water
    1/4 c. vegetable oil
    1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce
    1/4 c. brown sugar
    3 ripe bananas
    1 tsp vanilla extract

    Pour wet into dry, and mix just until combined. This is when the rising starts, so make sure you don’t mix out the bubbles. Be gentle when you spoon into 12 muffin cups (greased or papered).

    Top each muffin with two or three crumbled pecans and some brown sugar. Put them in the oven immediately (again, so they stay light).

    Bake for 15-20 minutes until they spring back a bit when you touch the center.

Looking Forward

February’s meeting will be on vermi-composting. My friend has a worm bin in her basement and she’s going to tell us all about it!
March’s meeting (if I can get it together by then) will be on whole grain yeast breads. I hope to discuss whole wheat bread, and possibly hamburger buns, rolls, and pita. We’ll talk about grinding our own wheat, using gluten, and general technique. Also, we’ll pool our resources and make some dough conditioner for everyone to take home.