Could Your Favorite Family Meals Be a Lot Healthier?

 

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Every family has its own comfort food that everyone loves. Whether it’s an indulgent plate of mac and cheese, the family’s signature burgers, or even crispy fried chicken, everyone has something that they love and would never change. But having said that, many of these family classics are also fairly unhealthy. For example, frying chicken in oil is never going to be healthy no matter what, and the amount of cheese and dairy in a typical mac and cheese dish can make the calories add up very quickly.

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Now that many families are developing healthier habits, is it about time that we start changing the way we approach food? Some families opt to limit themselves to their unhealthy meals, but others try to change the ingredients so that it’s fewer calories and a bit healthier. In this post, we’re going to share a couple of ideas to help you make your family meals a bit healthier.

Lowering calories or increasing nutritional value?

There are two main ways to make your family meals healthier; either lower the number of calories in your meals or increase the nutritional value.

The first option generally involves taking out ingredients or substituting unhealthy ingredients with something else. For example, you could try taking out sugar from your baked desserts and instead use a sweetener of some kind. This could be a generic sweetener that you can find in stores, or it could be something more interesting such as honey. This acts as a great substitute for sugar, but it can also contain more nutritional value and other healthy properties. This is a very common replacement for sugar and is generally well-received. You could also try replacing butter with some kind of oil when frying, and you could even try changing the way you cook something. It’s very popular these days to use something like an air fryer instead of cooking in oil, and baking is also a great alternative that is convenient for certain types of foods.

The other option is to embrace the fact that these meals are high in their caloric content, but then add extra ingredients to make them richer in nutrients. For example, cakes and similar desserts are usually family favorites, but they’re high in calories because of the ingredients used. However, you can fortify them with additional protein and other nutrients by adding different types of powders to the mixture before you bake it. This is a similar idea to protein cookies or even CBD cookies that have extra health benefits that you wouldn’t normally get from a baked snack or dessert. This turns them into nutrient-packed snacks that you can bake and eat without feeling too guilty.

In short, you should decide whether you want to lower the calorie count of your favorite foods or if you want to improve their nutritional value. In some cases, you can even do both. Either way, it’s important to understand the nutrients in your food by reading labels and figuring out the nutritional value of the meals you’re cooking.

Balancing healthy meals with indulgent ones

Every family has indulgent favorites that they absolutely love. But if you were to eat those on a regular basis, then it’s probably going to drastically increase your calorie count and add on the pounds. Still, it’s no fun to deprive you and your family of those indulgent meals. You might try to lower the calorie count by changing key ingredients or changing the preparation and cooking methods, but at the end of the day, it’s probably not going to taste the same.

As such, you may want to try to focus more on balancing your meals instead of just trying to change them. For example, if you want to have an indulgent family meal during the weekend, the weekdays should be filled with healthier options and low-calorie meals that are packed full of nutrients. This can include salads with a lot of protein, plenty of fruits and vegetables as snacks, and a reduced amount of carbohydrates. This allows you to balance your nutrients and essentially gives you “cheat meals” where you and your family can sit down and enjoy your favorites without feeling guilty.

So could your family favorites be healthier? Most likely. There are plenty of ways to change ingredients to make it more nutrient-dense or to lower calories, but that could negatively affect the taste and ruin your family favorites. So between changing the recipe and balancing healthy meals with indulgent ones, you can certainly help your family be healthier.