Healthy Holiday Suggestions

Holidays can be difficult for those on a diabetic diet – actually, for anyone on any diet! The American Diabetes Association offers the following suggestions to make your celebrations a little sweeter and less damaging to your health ad waistline. These are great suggestions for anyone to follow.

• You can enjoy an occasional sugar-containing food, but it must be substi9tuted for other carbohydrates already in your diet. If you want a small slice of pumpkin pie, for example, give up the baked potato and toppings at dinner.
• When you are making a festive dessert, try cutting the sugar by one-third to one-half and increasing the cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and any other sweet-tasting spices and flavorings.
• Decide ahead of time what and how much you will eat and how you will handle social pressure to indulge in foods that are not normally in your diet.
• Take a smaller serving size of dessert or scrape off the high-fat whipped cream topping.
• Volunteer to bring a favorite low-sugar dish such as baked apples or sugar-free puddings to social functions.
• Do not take a holiday from your daily exercise routine. Continue your normal workouts in addition to extra activities such as power walking while shopping.

Beneficial Baking Basics

• Applesauce: Fruit purees such as applesauce can replace up to half of the fat called for in baked items. The natural sugars and fibers in applesauce help to retain moisture.
• Cocoa: Reduce the amount of baking chocolate in a recipe with low-fat cocoa. Three tablespoons of cocoa plus 1-tablespoon of water equals one square of baking chocolate. Mix the cocoa into the dry ingredients and stir the water into the wet or creamed items in the recipe.
• Confectioners’ Sugar: Leave that can of frosting on the shelf and reach for the confectioners’ sugar instead. A light dusting over cakes and brownies significantly cuts calories and fat compared to heavy frosting.
• Nuts: It’s all right to keep nuts on your shopping list – simply decrease the amount you usually purchase. Toast the nuts before mixing them into your batter or dough. This will give them a stronger flavor so you can use less of them.
• Yogurt: Replace up to half of the butter in your recipe with half as much low-fat or nonfat plain yogurt. Not only does this decrease the fat, but it also helps create tender products.