How Almost Homemade Can Make Your Thanksgiving Meal Healthy, Fast And Easy

Benefits Of Almost Homemade Cooking:

Checks food wastage:

• Almost homemade checks food spoilage and wastage as you incorporate items that are either too small for use or to be preserved into your dishes with no stress.

Higher nutritional value:

• Almost homemade can be combined with prepackaged dishes in such a way that you either add or substitute the ingredients in order to beef up the nutritional value of some dishes while reducing the calories and fat levels.
• Again, a particular ingredient in a prepackaged recipe that a family member is allergic to can be avoided by substituting it with other items from your stock. This can go a long way to checking food allergies and sensitization.
• Many ingredients in products are chemicals which are detrimental to our bodies. In almost homemade, you can use natural ingredients that enhance color, taste For instance, pure vanilla, not artificial; real eggs not egg substitutes, butter not lard or margarine can be used.
• You also have a chance of staying away from products that have been genetically altered to increase the size and some other factors by opting for organically grown items for your combinations.
• In almost homemade, you to some extent put a check on not only the ingredients used in preparing the dish but also on how much of it you consume.

Makes for variety:

• Fresh vegetables can be added to prepackaged dishes to create variations on a dish.

More servings from the same quantity:

• You can have more servings from the same quantity of stock if you augment the prepackaged store-bought item with stocks like meat, fruit, and vegetables.

Brings the family together:

• Almost homemade creates an opportunity for the family to spend time together. This has the advantage of not only letting the children learn about food preparation as they help either by reading the recipe aloud or by mixing some ingredients for use in the meal preparation.
• More so, as they cook and eat meals together as a family, parents get the chance to groom the children on both healthy eating habits and good table manners.

 Money-saving:

• With just a few selected items from the store, you can combine some fresh ingredients from your stock thereby spending less than you would have if everything were to be bought from the store.

Portion-control:

In almost homemade, you can regulate your food portions unlike in restaurants and fast food joints where you are usually tempted to eat almost everything that you are served.

Relieves stress:

• Almost homemade can be both pleasurable and relaxing as both cooking and cleaning involve exercise and every form of exercise reduces one’s dopamine level as well as other mood-enhancing hormones.

Enhances creativity:

• Almost homemade gives you the chance to be imaginative, creative and artistic. As you look forward to great recipes, you will try out ingredients that you have probably never used before.
• You may also attempt making something that is usually in one form in a different form altogether.

How To Make Prepackaged Recipes Healthier

A good prepackaged recipe should have ‘real food’ ingredients. In other words, it should have carbohydrates, proteins, and fats which combine not only to keep you fuller for longer periods but also give better blood sugar control and a broader spectrum of nutrition. This implies that it should be low in sugar, low in salts, trans-fat-free while tasting great.

The saturated fat content should be 3grams or less to make for a healthy heart.

The sodium content should be in the range of 500-600mg ie 2300mg daily for healthy people. For someone who eats four meals daily, that is 575mg per meal.

Basically, a healthy prepackaged recipe should be one that you can recreate in your own kitchen.

Armed with these facts, you need to look for recognizable natural ingredients in your store-bought  prepackaged recipe and follow these tips as you substitute or exclude certain ingredients altogether while giving your meals a taste and nutrition boost:

The Traditional Recipe for Roasted Turkey Dish

Turkey is a naturally lean source of protein. To make the traditional recipe for roasted turkey dish healthier, you should:

• Remove any excess skin to reduce fat further.
• Cut the salt content in half.
• Add more of the flavored herbs: rosemary, oregano, and parsley.

The Traditional Recipe for Mashed Potato Dish

Mashed potatoes are naturally calorie-dense, particularly in carbohydrates. To make this dish healthier:

• Substitute potato with cauliflower as you’ll be eating enough of starch in the course of the Thanksgiving day. This substitution really cuts down on carbohydrate and calories.
• Substitute whole for skim milk and exclude butter so as to reduce total fat. This not only cuts down on the fats but specifically the saturated fats. It cuts 27 calories, and with the exclusion of cheese, cuts an additional 26 calories.
• Substitute butter with trans-fat free margarine so as to decrease saturated fat, as butter is a tasty killer in the recipe due to its high-fat

Cooking Tip: For creamy mashed potato fans who love the texture, without the added regular cheese fats, Laughing Cow Cheese is recommended.

The Traditional Recipe for Stuffing

Due to the very high carbohydrate content of Stuffing:

• Substitute the white bread with 100 percent whole wheat bread so as to increase fiber.
• Substitute butter with olive oil, vegetable oil, or unsalted butter (my personal choice).
• Add fruit such as diced apple, diced prunes, golden raisins.
• Add additional diced fresh celery

Cooking Tip: A tablespoon of butter is equivalent to 2 teaspoons of olive oil.