Healthy Eating for the Holidays

Mary Maryland, PhD, RN, presents a talk titled "Healthy Eating for the Holidays,"  at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 20, at the Oak Park Arms retirement community, 408 S. Oak Park Ave. Dr. Mary, as she's affectionately called, will present tips on how not to gain weight during the holiday season. The public is invited to this free program.

For many people, holidays and family get-togethers are a time for celebration. These celebrations often involve foods that are high in fat, sugar and calories and short on nutrition. With minor changes you won't even notice, special occasion foods can be both delicious and nutritious.

Mulled cider or lowfat eggnog are a good alternative to high fat eggnog. Another good idea is to dilute eggnog with skim milk. Nonalcoholic or de-alcoholized wines are improving all the time and make a great alternative for the holidays.

Use skimmed milk and other 'low' or 'no' fat dairy products in your recipes whenever possible. Look for the wide variety of low fat cheeses, cheese slices and cheese spreads that are now available.

Choose leaner cuts of meat for holiday gatherings whenever possible. Turkey is one of the leanest types of meat. As a general rule, white meat is leaner than dark meat - so choose the breast meat of a chicken or turkey rather than the drumstick. Eat fish more often. Cold water fatty fish such as tuna and salmon have 'heart healthy' types of fat in them. Cook meats on a rack so fat can drip away. When preparing a roast, baste with low fat broth instead of the drippings from the pan.

Fortunately, most vegetables contain little or no fat. Avoid smothering vegetables with thick creamy sauces or butter. Potatoes, for example, contain no fat. They also contain very little salt and are good sources of Vitamins B and C and potassium. Potato skins are a good source of fibre. When mashing potatoes, rather than adding butter or sour cream, try whipping the potatoes with skim or 1% milk or low, no fat sour cream, or yogurt.

Salads are a great addition to any holiday meal. Select a low fat dressing or ask your host to let you add your own so that you can control the amount.

If you have stuffing with your meat dish and the recipe calls for meat or giblets, replace half of the meat with dried fruits such as cranberries, raisins or apricots. This turns an everyday recipe into a colorful and seasonal dish. Rather than cooking stuffing inside of poultry or a roast, cook the stuffing in a casserole dish or aluminum foil in the oven. This will reduce the amount of fat in the stuffing considerably.

Making gravy from a low fat broth rather than the drippings from poultry or a roast is a good way to reduce fat. If your gravy recipe calls for milk, make sure to use skim milk. If you choose to use drippings for your gravy, pour or skim the fat off the top of the drippings before using. This can be done by letting the drippings get cold and, when the fat has become hard, take it off with a spoon. Or, when the drippings are cool, you can also add ice cubes, to which the fat will stick. Remove the ice cubes before making the gravy.

Cranberries are an excellent source of Vitamin C. However, much of the Vitamin C content is lost in the canning process, but homemade cranberry sauce is easy to prepare and the nutrients are retained. Try using cranberry sauce on your turkey instead of gravy. When making cranberry sauce, add sugar after cooking the cranberries to maintain the tenderness of the skin. You may also want to substitute some artificial sweetener for some of the sugar in your cranberry sauce recipe.

And finally, dessert.  Mix applesauce with mincemeat to reduce the amount of fat and serve with frozen low fat or fat free yogurt. Angel food cake contains little or no fat and can make a great dessert when served with fruits such as strawberries, raspberries or a fresh fruit salad.

When you are making pumpkin pie – use evaporated skim milk and top with low fat or fat free ice cream or frozen yogurt.

Try to make wise dessert choices rather than deny yourself. Have a smaller portion and savor every mouthful.

And happy holidays!

The Oak Park Arms is a rental retirement community which provides independent and assisted living apartments and a full schedule of activities and services. Furnished apartments are also available for a short-term stay - a weekend, a week, a month or longer.

The program is free and open to the public. For more information call Jill Wagner at 708-386-4040 or visit http://www.oakparkarms.com.