When looking at dietary choices, sometimes it’s easy to determine what is a healthier alternative.
Other times it’s not quite so straightforward. And despite our best efforts, sometimes we need a bit of help from a multi vitamin for women or men.
Read on to find the seven (7) foods to swap for healthier alternatives.
Food Swap #1: Fried Foods for Baked or Grilled
Any sort of fried food is bad for you. For instance, you can swap:
- French, waffle, or steak fries, or potato chips for a baked potato. Eating a sweet potato (minus the sugary toppings, of course) is probably even healthier. Want the same crunch that’s even healthier than a potato? Opt for raw vegetables (skip the salad dressing, please). Carrots, peppers, and celery all contain the same type of crunch without any of the guilt.
- Corn chips for grilled corn on the cob
- Fried chicken for baked or grilled chicken
Food Swap #2: Drink Water Instead
- Instead of having 2% milk, drink water; this saves 124 calories
- Instead of consuming a soda, drink water; this can save between 138 – 150 calories
- Instead of drinking plain juice, cut it in half with water. Adding water can save anywhere from 5 to over 100 calories, depending on the specific juice.
- Instead of having coffee with cream and sugar, drink it black or use something like monk fruit. The switch can save 50 – 66 calories per cup.
- If you must have a creamy liquid drink, choose an unsweetened nondairy “milk,” which can clock in as low as 35 calories per cup.
Food Swap #3: Choose Healthier Alternatives for Fats
Notall fats are created equal. Some fats may be better for you than others. These include both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Such fats:
- Reduce heart attack and stroke risk.
- Decrease LDL while increasing HDL.
- Prevent arrhythmias.
- Bring down the risk of heart-disease triglycerides and inflammation.
- Lower Blood pressure
- Ward off atherosclerosis (hardening and narrowing of the arteries).
Adding additional healthy fats to your diet may also reduce appetite and help promote weight loss.
Sources of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats include:
- Olives & olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, and sesame oil
- Avocados & Avocado oil
- Nuts and nut-butters (walnuts, almonds, peanuts, macadamia, hazelnuts, pecans, cashews)
- Sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds, and pumpkin seeds
- Fatty fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring, trout, sardines) and fish oil
- Soybean and safflower oil
- Soy-based products (edamame, soymilk, tofu, “soy meat”)
Use butter instead of margarine
Butter instead of margarine. Note: while butter may be healthier than margarine because it’s a more natural product, it’s still not recommended to overindulge.
It’s the least healthy of all the fats listed here.
Use Omega 3 Fatty Acids
Omega 3 fatty acids are found in Chia seeds and salmon
Food Swap #4: Consider Alternatives to Bread
Most people think “bread is bread,” but nothing could be further from the truth. Many types of breads found in the store are highly processed and full of refined sugar, oils, and flour.
- Consider using wraps. Because they’re thinner, they contain fewer carbs. Some aren’t even flour based, consisting of cheese.
- If you use tortillas, consider corn instead of flour. If you don’t like them as they come out of the package, consider charring them over an open flame or in a skillet to cook them and give them some texture.
- Another alternative to bread might be to substitute a leaf of lettuce, kale, cabbage, or some spinach to contain the ingredients. Such substitutions generally have negligible calories and, most of the time, no carbs.
- Use brown rice, riced cauliflower, or couscous instead of bread.
- If you must have bread, consider a whole grain alternative like Ezekiel bread.
- When choosing pizza crust, always go for the thin crust. You may also wish to consider a cauliflower crust if the pizza chain offers it.
Food Swap #5: Use Veggies in Place of Pasta
Instead of consuming grain-based spaghetti, use a spiralizer to turn fruits and veggies into long strands. Don’t know what to spiralize? Try cutting the following into ribbons:
- Fruits: Apple, Pear or Plantain
- Vegetables
- Beet
- Bell, Sweet, & Spicy Peppers (think poblanos)
- Broccoli & Cauliflower (“riced”)
- Butternut & summer squash, zucchini
- Cabbage, Bok choy
- Carrots
- Chayote “Vegetable pear”
- Cucumber
- Celeriac, Jicama, Kohlrabi, Rutabaga
- Onions
- Parsnips, Turnips, & radishes
- Taro Root (must be cooked)
Note: you may have to experiment with what blade to cut them with and how to use them, but it’s worth the hassle!
Fruits and veggies are healthier, have fewer calories and carbs, and have more variety of flavors and textures than traditional grain-based pasta does.
Food Swap #6 Think Beyond Sugar
- While too much fruit isn’t a good thing, at least fresh fruit has one thing going for it that sugar and all its alternative names, including corn syrup, honey, and agave, don’t. Fresh fruit contains fiber. By adding fruit to something you’re eating already and adapting to the taste, you can sweeten things that naturally would need additional sweeteners.
- Unsweetened fruit purees such as applesauce, dates, prunes, or mashed bananas may also be able to substitute for sugar or oils in some cases, particularly in baking. You may have to experiment to get the level of sweetness desired.
- Consider using sugar alternatives like Stevia, sugar alcohols, allulose, or monk fruit
Food Swap #7 Choose Tomato-based sauces vs. cream based.
Yes, it can be tempting to have a creamy alfredo; unfortunately, they’re higher in cholesterol, fat, and salt than their tomato-based counterparts.
When choosing store-bought tomato sauces, select ones that have added vegetables, don’t have added sugar, and are lower in sodium content.