Creatively cutting out fat

 What kinds of things have you counters out there done when you want something fattening? Maybe we can get a good list of originally fattening foods that have been scaled down by creative thinking. I've been trying to improvise for a few years now and I have a few good things I would be willing to share. French fries with minimal fat, onion rings etc. Does anyone else have anything they've scaled down?

 When I want a certain food, I want it. For example, tonight I really wanted something with blue cheese dressing, but we all knwo its the worst dressing ever. So I decided to take some fat free sour cream,low fat mayo, low fat crumbled bleu cheese and half a packet of ranch dip mix and mixed them together and it tastes even better than bleu cheese dressing.

Hi! I found bleu cheese no calorie dressing. It´s from walden farms. It tastes ptretty good for me . I cant believe it has no calories!!!!i almost feel guilty having it on my salads....

OOh that sounds delish!! It has zero calories? What are the ingredients? I let my low fat low cal bleu cheese dressing sit overnight and it came out really well, im excited.

Im sad though that no one else posted anything :-( 

I've found that low-fat and light (and SOMETIMES fat-free) are definitely the way to go with salad dressings, mayonnaise, Miracle Whip, etc.  In those types of things there is no difference in the taste (to me at least) so it's an easy place to cut out some calories and not miss them.  Another thing I do sometimes is add about a dozen little mandarin orange slices to my salad, right out of the can, and just skip the salad dressing altogether.

Also, I've started lately baking brownies and cookies (for my kids) and using unsweetened applesauce in place of the oil.  It is one of the best tips for baking bready sweets (works for cake mixes, too) and there is ABSOLUTELY no difference in the flavor or texture.  I don't eat these but it's healthier for my kids.

I switched my family from whole milk to 2% a couple of years ago, and recently we've moved down to 1%.  (Haven't been able to make that jump to skim yet, though ... I like my milk to LOOK like milk ... lol!!)

I'll have to think some more on the rest, but this is a good topic and it's got my wheels a-turnin' now!

 

 

I agree with you in that I can't taste much difference between low fat, an regualr. Sometimes fat free has a weird twang to it but once you get over used to that, it tastes good. I found that Smart Beat non fat maynoaise is really tasty and also its worth payin ga little extra for a name brand low fat mayo like Cains (2 g fat and 30 cals per tbsp).

I hear a lot of people using applesauce in place of oil and for some reason i still ahvent tried it and i really want to! One thing that i add to my brownies is al ittle alcohol (vodka, coffee or chocolate liquer etc) and t adds extra moist to it and a hint of flavor. 

yummy!

I do that, too, with cheesecake ... back when I was the "cheesecake queen" I made them for most events - holidays, birthdays, etc.  I have my own recipe that I call "Gangs of New York" cheesecake.  It is a really delicous Italian Cheesecake and I add Bailey's Irish Cream Liquer to it.

Now, if I could find a way to make THAT creatively low-fat, I'd be set!!

Mashed potatos made with chicken stock & garlic instead of butter & cream.  Yummy!

I've always been a bit aprehensive with those Walden Farms dressings.  How can those creamy dressing have absolutely no calories, sugar, or fat but still taste like things? LOL   They are definitely created at some secret lab on a deserted island somewhere! :)

I'm more likely to go ahead and splurge on the full-fat, because it packs more flavor and is more satisfying. I don't believe anymore in low-fat diets.... I was on one in the late 80s/early 90s and I fear it is the reason I wound up prediabetic. So I aim for 30% fat in my diet, but most of that from healthy unsaturated fats and omega 3's.

I don't really have a tooth for baked goods anyway. It's sad, I have flour and other baking stuff in my cupboards that is probably a decade old and I should just toss it!!!

Agree with the mashed potatoes made with chick stock and garlic... yumm.... I don't put butter on much of anything, except the occasional slice of toast. My family thinks I'm weird but I much prefer corn-on-the-cob without butter... just lots of black pepper. And baked potatoes are great with balsalmic vinegar.

I add 1 TB olive oil to my salads, and I saute veggies in a little olive oil. Otherwise, I eat full-fat cheeses (but in small amounts), nuts, flax seed. I don't drink milk anymore because it gives me problems, and yogurt I stick to nonfat because I actually prefer it for some strange reason. Sometimes I'll substititute nonfat yogurt for mayo when I make tuna salad, or I'll just go ahead and splurge on a little of the full-fat mayo.

As for the blue cheese dressing, there's one restaurant we like to go to that makes an excellent one. I go ahead and eat it - but I dip my fork in it instead of drowning my salad. I don't like drowned salads anyway!

As for french fries, that is one of the foods I need to steer clear of or I'll go overboard!!! I've learned instead to order green beans. I douse them in salt and eat them with my fingers.

Cheesecake: if you're going to eat it, I say go for the real stuff and enjoy!!! If it's an occasional thing, it's not going to kill you.

I make a really good cheesecake from a recipe i got from stoneyfield farms yogurt. To me, it tastes just as fattening and creamy, but its like 80% less fat.

Instead of regualr cream cheese, you strain a large container of low fat yogurt  (or even fat free) in a cheese cloth for a couple hours. Mix it with some eggs, sugar (or splenda), and 3 packages of low fat cream cheese, mix very well, add vanilla and lemon zest and bake like you would a regular cheese cake. its so creamy.

I highly recommend the cc black bean brownies made with no pudge brownie mix.

Having said that, fat is not always something to be avoided, you do need a certain amount of fat, nut oils, olives, nuts, and avocado are great ways to get the good fats in your diet.

Read up on the good and bad fats from the CC library.

Edit: After reading this article again, low fat milk products are not one of the sources of good fats.

Other calorie cutting ideas from the CC library.

I avoid fat by using light soy milk, fat free yogurt, unsweetened applesauce, fat free cottage cheese, fat free or veggie cheeses, veggie meat substitutes, cooking spray etc., in a lot of my cooking and baking.

Sometimes my fats get so low I have to eat some olives or have some cashew butter to drive them up!

Packaged stuff has a lot of hydrogenated garbage, which is not good. And I used to buy a creamer, but it had palm and coconut oils, which are saturated fat.

Unsweetened Almond Breeze in place of milk and stuff--not necessarily cutting fat if you were going to use skim milk, but definitely cutting out calories.

Also, using applesauce in baking recipes in place of butter or oil. Makes me happy!

There's also a fat-free feta I like to buy, and I tried this almond cheese with only 50 calories per serving and 1g of fat (I think? I would have to check the label again for the fat content... it was low, anyway) which was really, really good. I was surprised!

And of course I only ever get fat-free or lowfat cottage cheese and yogurt. Mmm...

I've actually found that since I've developed little ways of tricking myself with low-calorie things, I don't crave the other stuff as much anymore. Here are my two recent favorites:

-Pretending nonfat Greek yogurt (80 cals) is cheesecake is my life. Haha. I add stuff to it, like vanilla syrup (see below) and berries. I would choose it over cheesecake now, too, (and i LOVE cheesecake) just because it's so much healthier.
-I JUST discovered the beauty in Torani sugar-free syrups (splenda, I know, ew, but I'm over it) and I've been adding them to everything. I got vanilla and chocolate - work in yogurt, carbonated water (create soda basically) coffee, tea, you name it...

Im totally a fan of splenda...it does what its supposed to do..whatevs, right?