Healthy Eating for Easter
March's Nutritional Holiday Recipes and Food Tips
March brings a second article about nutritional recipes and foods, and the focus is Easter. Learn how to keep this holiday's meal low-calorie, low-fat, and low in sugar.
Welcome to March. Easter comes early this year, and with it comes the decision of whether to eat healthy. It's easy to scarf down chocolates, Peeps, caramels, and other junk food. What's a little more difficult is to make a healthy and delicious meal. Where to start? Simple: tweak traditional food items and opt for light, tasty recipes.
Keep Snacks and Appetizers Light and Simple
How many times have you gone to a gathering and found yourself already full after eating only a few appetizers? Unfortunately, this seems to be the norm for many functions. Families and friends end up making too many high-fat and high-calorie appetizers: chips and dips, pigs-in-a-blanket, freezer-to-oven hors d'oeuvres, and such. Even veggie platters become suspect when they include a high-fat dip. Instead of this, try serving a fruit platter (sans dip), a shrimp platter with low-calorie cocktail sauce, and a veggie platter with low-fat/low-calorie dressing. Guests will tickle their tastebuds but still be hungry for the main meal.
Pick Good Starches/Vegetables to Accompany the Main Dish
Eating healthy is pretty much a matter of selecting lighter versions of traditional holiday foods. Vegetables and starches such as breads and rolls are the usual side dishes on Easter. Choose vegetables that are deep in color and nutrients, such as broccoli, sweet potatoes, and string beans instead of creamed corn, mashed potatoes, or creamed onions. For starches, select whole-grain breads and rolls that are made from wheat, rye, or pumpernickel.
Here's a yummy, healthy sweet potato recipe:
- Heat oven to 375 degrees
- Combine 5 lbs of mashed (cooked) sweet potatoes, 2 tablespoons of margarine, 3/4 cup of apple juice, and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper in a mixing bowl
- Put potato mixture into a 2 to 2 1/2 quart baking disk and bake for 30 minutes
- Remove from heat and sprinkle with fresh parsley
Choose a Lean Roast Over a Spiral Ham
Instead of cooking a traditional ham, try making a lean pork loin roast. This cut is one of the leanest pork cuts, and it is incredibly tender. A great way to do this is in a crock pot, because it saves oven space and prep time:
- Decide whether to cook the roast on low or high. If you decide on low, give the roast 8 hours to simmer in the crock pot. On high, the pork will need about 4 hours.
- Pour one 8 to12 ounce can of whole cranberry sauce over a pork loin roast in a medium-sized crock pot (if you are having a lot of guests, you can ask the butcher about the size of the pork roast, and you can always use a larger crock pot and add more cranberry sauce.)
- Cover and cook--- that's it! The whole cranberries keep the roast moist and flavorful.
Go Easy on the Candy and Choose Light Desserts
Try sugar-free or reduced-sugar candy, and stick to chocolates, which have less sugar than Peeps or caramels. For dessert, try making a light coconut custard pie or angel food cake instead of a fruit pie (heavy syrup) or high-fat cookies.
- To view February's healthy recipe, see Heart Healthy Pan-Seared Tuna.
