Health & nutrition tip

10 Ways to Cut Calories
By Susan Burke March MS, RD, LD/N, CDE
eDiets Contributor

1. Nonstick: Stock up on nonstick pans for baking and grilling, breads and cookies, sauteing and even for soup. Nonstick is one of life's little pleasures because you don't need oil. Instead use a little cooking spray, wine, water or juice.

2. Method: Bake, broil, grill, poach or saute foods instead of deep-frying. Check out the "Better-Than-Fried Chicken" recipe below... It's awesome.

3. Reduce: Simply reduce the amount of fat and/or sugar in your recipes. For example, replace half the oil with applesauce or fruit puree for an equally moist muffin or cake; use one-third less sugar in cakes or cookies and use dried fruit, not sugar, to add sweetness to cereal. Experiment with sucralose (Splenda) for baking.

4. Baste: Instead of basting the turkey with butter or margarine, cut the saturated, and especially trans fat, by basting with flavorful vegetable broth, white wine or orange juice (my personal favorite!)

5. Lean: Buy the leanest cuts of meat and trim all visible fat before cooking. Pam Ofstein, Director of Nutrition Services, recommends ground round, at least 91-percent lean. Lighten it up even more by replacing a third of the beef with ground turkey breast. Just be sure to buy turkey breast --"ground turkey" could also contain skin and dark meat, nutritionally no better than ground beef.

6. Dairy: Buy low-fat and nonfat varieties of milk, sour cream, yogurt and cheese. Low-fat buttermilk works great as a substitute for whole milk in any recipe. Nonfat evaporated milk works famously in dishes calling for cream, like sauces, pies, ice cream and, of course, in tea and coffee. Don't confuse "evaporated" with "condensed" milk, which is heavily sweetened with sugar.

7. Chocolate: Why deny yourself the sensuous pleasure of chocolate when there's cocoa? Three tablespoons of cocoa and one tablespoon of canola oil lowers saturated fat compared to one ounce of baking chocolate. Check out the chocolate pudding recipe below!

8. Eggs: When cooking, just substitute two egg whites for one whole egg (the fat, cholesterol and most of the calories from eggs are in the yolks). I make my "famous" frittata for two with six whites and two whole eggs, cutting calories without flavor. My secret: Add a clove of minced garlic, plus herbs and spices and 1/3 cup of low-fat buttermilk.

9. Crumbs: Substitute crunchy cereal for higher-calorie commercial bread crumbs. I like to use crushed corn flakes or Grape Nuts.

10. Cut: Make servings smaller. Americans suffer from "portion distortion" and think everything needs to be bigger to be better. Use smaller plates, and make that cake serve 12 instead of eight.