Your Mom Was Wrong… Play with Your Food!

Enjoy Your Favorite Comfort Foods Without Upsizing Your Jeans

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The holidays are upon us and the temperature outside is plummeting. For many of us, these 2 factors mean indoor activities start to ramp up. Cravings tend to shift toward comfort. Comfort in the home, comfort from food, and comfort with friends and family. What better way to satisfy all cravings for comfort than to get cooking!

However, my go-to-favorite comfort foods tend to, if I’m not mindful, lead to discomfort in my favorite jeans. Over the years I learned a few tricks to have it all — comfort food and a trim waistline. Why not? But having it all starts with the willingness to *play with your food.

*Please note: I don’t mean use your food to rediscover your fascination with gravity or start eating everything without utensils and wiping half of it on your face. Maybe not play with the actual food, but definitely play with the recipes!

Below I’ve included 3 tips, some tricks, and plenty of do’s & don’ts for you to retain all the comfort of your family favorite recipes whilst, with a tweak or two, making them healthy or at least healthy-ish.

1. Whenever you attempt to make healthy swaps in fat laden recipes, the trick is to really bump up the flavor.

• Use plenty of fresh and dried herbs. I find that most recipes are really conservative with spices and I almost always double or triple the amount called for in a recipe. As a rule, I usually cook with dried spices and top the dishes off with fresh herbs. If I’m making dips or salad dressings, I use fresh and dried.
• Add sauteed onions and garlic. I can’t think of a soup, stew, sauce, or main course that isn’t better with sauteed onions and garlic. Even a simple hamburger is better with these two prebiotics. You’ve heard of probiotics, right? They’re good bacteria for your gut health. Well, prebiotics essentially give probiotics a healthy environment to thrive, which translates to great gut health for you.
• Reduce, reduce, reduce. Whatever ingredients in your soup or sauce produce any liquid, cook that liquid down to almost nothing, then add more liquid (broth, water, wine) and cook that down, and repeat. This ensures that plenty of…