By adjusting the ingredients you use in cooking and baking, you can incorporate treats into your healthy eating lifestyle.

Butter
• Swap butter or hard margarines for sunflower or olive oil based margarines instead. For example; Golden olive, Flora or Low Low Gold are suitable for baking.

Milk
• Instead of whole milk, use low fat milk

Flour
• Use half wholemeal flour and half white flour in the recipe to increase fibre content
• Add a handful of oat flakes to further increase fibre content

Sugar
• Reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe to half
• Use sweeteners instead of sugar where possible, for example Splenda and Canderel
• Add spices such as cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg or flavourings such as vanilla and almond extract to enhance the sweetness.

Cream
• Go for custard with desserts instead of cream. To make custard use low fat milk and sweetener instead of sugar
• Replace sour cream with low fat natural yoghurt
• Light or extra light cream cheese works perfectly in cheesecake recipes

Chocolate
• Substitute every ounce of cooking chocolate with 3 Tbsp cocoa powder

Nuts
• Reduce the quantity of nuts by half and toast them. By toasting the nuts it helps develop the flavour, so fewer nuts required!

Baking Time
• Reduced-fat baked goods tend to bake more quickly – so lower the oven temperature by 25° and/or check the product a few minutes before the end of the usual baking time

Success in lower-fat baking comes from trial and error, so don't be afraid to experiment. Remember to limit portion size and frequency of treats!!

For more information you can contact Claire Kerins, Dietitian on 091-893501