Life is better when it’s simple.
When it comes to eating healthier or losing weight, it can get complicated pretty quick.
And the advice is all over the place:
Cut out fruit.
Eat more fruit.
Low fat is healthier.
High fat, low carb is healthier.
It’s enough to make your head spin. The amount of information is staggering and, even worse, a lot of it is conflicting.
When things get overwhelming we have a tendency to throw up our hands and say, forget it! Who can possible wade through all of this and come up with the right answer?
Fortunately, there are a few things that you can do on a daily basis that will help improve your health.
Check out the infographic below for a few simple cooking swaps that you can do without all the head spinning.
Note: I do think the title of this infographic is a little misleading- you are definitely not cutting out the fat, but you are making healthy swaps.
Simple swaps.
With ingredients you likely already have on hand.
Easy things you can do everyday with things you’ve already got on hand to make you and your family healthier without feeling like you’re depriving yourselves.
From Visual.ly
These swaps may help you lose weight.
They may not.
What they will do is make you healthier.
Reducing your sugar- and replacing it with something healthier (full of nutrients and fiber instead of… nothing) will go a long way to reducing inflammation, risk of chronic disease and obesity.
But don’t limit yourself to just applesauce when replacing sugar in recipes.
Look at other fruit purees like mashed bananas, pureed berries, pureed raisins or dates, pureed fruit baby foods, or even sweeter vegetables like cooked sweet potatoes, carrots, or beets.
Vanilla is not the only flavor enhancer that can help you decrease your sugar in recipes, other warm or “sweet” spices can help- cinnamon, ginger, pie spice, cloves, nutmeg and more.
Plus they have the added benefit of more antioxidants.
When it comes to using avocado as your fat, don’t stop with brownies. Avocado makes an excellent sub for butter in almost every recipe (see: avocado toast).
I also love the tip about spaghetti squash, but once again, don’t limit yourself here, zucchini, carrots, parsnips, beets, sweet potatoes, jicama and more veggies can be spiralized and made it to tasty, delicious, low carb noodles.
A few simple swaps when you cook can make a big difference in both your weight and your overall health.
What are your favorite swaps to make things a little healthier?