Making meals healthier the OAMM way
Andrea over at Mommy Snacks hosts a Fat Burnin’ Friday each, I know this will be a shocker, Friday! She talks about weight loss, healthy snacks and general ways to lose weight and burn fat. I thought it would be fun to contribute the OAMM way!
When I create Once A Month Mom menus I am often keeping in mind how to make healthy meals for my family. However, when I post the menus I post the recipe as is, that way the makers can make healthy adjustments to them as they see fit. A recipe may not initially present as super healthy but there are a lot of adjustments that you can make to make the menu a healthy option for your family. These are a few of the things that we do to make our dishes healthier.
- Use non-fat or light dairy products such as sour cream and yogurt. (I usually don’t use low-fat cheese as I have found that it doesn’t melt as well).
- Use whole wheat pasta instead of regular.
- Use whole wheat flour instead of white flour.
- Use brown rice instead of white.
- Other than in meatloaves and hamburgers, I use ground turkey in place of ground beef.
- Use low-sodium broths, soups and soy sauce.
These simple steps help to take out extra calories and carbohydrates that we don’t necessarily need in our diet.
Some of you might say, “Why not just make the Once A Month Mom menu with the healthy ingredients to start with?” Well, good question. I suppose the reason I leave them as is for the menu is that, first of all, we are using other people’s recipes and I don’t want to take away from what they have created. Also, everyone’s diet is different. Someone may need to substitute sugars because of being diabetic, or certain meats, or certain veggies. There are always going to be “exceptions” and I am just counting on the users of the menus to make the adjustments that they need, including me.
And let’s remember also, because we are cooking these meals and have them available at a moments notice we should be eating out less. Right? If so, we are automatically doing our bodies a favor! So keep that in mind too!
So how about you? Have you made any adjustments to the menu items to make the recipes healthier for you and your family?
And if you think of it go ahead and stop by Fat Burnin’ Friday for some motivation for getting healthy.
I’ve definitely used lower fat versions of sour cream, cream cheese and such…I also use homemade broth whenever I can (I season with mrs dash instead of salt!), and I sub about half of the white flour with whole wheat when I bake (any more than that and it’s too dense for me). I like seeing the recipes in their original forms…it gives me a place to start and adjust to our tastes!
I always buy the low sodium or helathy request broths/soups. I too use whole grain pasta/flour where I can. But I substitute some of the fat in the baked goods with applesauce. You can’t taste the difference, and it adds to the texture, making the baked goods more moist, which I think is an added bonus when freezing, because sometimes baked goods tend to dry out in the freezer some. Also, I try to cut some of the sugar out of the recipies. I do it a little at a time, we usually don’t miss it, and its better for my family.
This is one of the main reasons for me being on the fence when it comes to OAMC. I am a newbie cook and I don’t know enough about cooking to do substitutions just yet, and my husband has heart problems so I need to keep our diet low-fat and low-sodium. And cheap. I would love to find an OAMC website catering to that.
You can easily make these adjustments with these recipes. I, at 32, have chronic hypertension and need to do low-sodium. The suggestions made here along with some others from readers should help you make the adjustment with fat as well. You can also choose lean meats. They are more expensive but better for your health.
Okay, so ham isn’t so low sodium but we rarely will be featuring ham. It was just on sale this month!
Thanks, I would like to do chicken and fish and maybe, rarely beef.
So I can substitute ground turkey for ground beef. And I already buy low-fat, low-sodium everything. I use margarine if it calls for butter. But what about cooking times? Don’t they change if you use chicken or turkey instead of beef and pork?
It depends on which ones you are substituting ck/turk for instead of beef or pork. The temperature the dish gets to is more important than the exact time.
Oh, and my husband is 35 and on beta-blockers and we both have families with loads of heart-disease.
I agree with swapping things to make OAMC meals. Very easy to us red. fat/fat free products as the above poster stated! Happy Cooking!
I have to say I’ve been a little annoyed with some comments I’ve seen on this site complaining about the healthfulness of the meals. I mean, make your own darn site people. These women aren’t YOUR mother! I think many of the meals are quite healthful given the constraint of freezing, which does not treat all food equally. My perspective is that days where you don’t use your freezer meals are the ones to make most healthful, stir-frys, salads, other items to incorporate fresh vegetables and other ingredients. This can’t be a one size fits all resource, I’m pretty sure this is not a site written by registered dietitians to help with serious dietary constraints. I am sure appreciating the time our authors put into it, and we’ve had some great meals this month. Thanks girls
Thanks for your encouragement Carrie!
Amen Carrie! It always boggles my mind when people complain about a – ahem – FREE service that other people are providing! It is one thing to ask a legitimate question, but another to complain!
Thank you so much Tricia and Courtney! I am really looking forward to cooking this month! 8 )
Oh, and my healthy subsitutions – low sodium soups and broth, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, and using turkey or 90/10 or 95/5 beef. And I always serve a side of fresh or frozen veggies with our frozen (or fresh) dinners.
Loved the fish recipes last month!!
When I click on the mommy snacks website it says it’s a private blog. Do you know what’s wrong?
She is working on switching her site over so that could be the problem. Try going to mommysnacks.net and seeing if that helps. Or try back in a few hours.
Sorry you’re annoyed Carriem, but when a site puts up a comment form and encourages feedback, users are going to tell you what they think. What’s wrong with that?
I’m not actually trying to start a fight, I have noticed lots of ‘not healthy enough’ comments sprinkled throughout the site. I think we all adjust the menu somehow to suit our needs, I just don’t like the complaining.
Hi, good post. I have been pondering this issue,so thanks for sharing. I will certainly be coming back to your posts.
Thanks for the advice! I’m new to cooking and can use all the help I can get. Shopping for the April menu, I saw the healthier options in the store, but steared clear for fear it would affect the recipes negatively.
For May I’ll try a few and see how it works
An excellent way to add more veggies to your meals is to blend them up and add them to sauces. Also, we add colorless, tasteless fiber to our meals to supplement our bodies – you can add to muffin batter, eggs, sauces, coffee…anything. It is not a bad idea to try!!!
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I substitute half of the flour in any recipe with almond meal (basically, ground up almonds.) This ups the protein. I also add flax to every baked good. The remaining flour is usually a mix of white and wheat flour.
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Wondering if anyone knows what to substitute when a recipe calls for a can of ‘cream of something’ soup… I prefer to replace ready-made ingredients with home-made ones, but I’m not sure how to safely (for the recipe’s sake) get around this one… Thanks!
Good question. We are working on a post as we speak to help address this. Stay tuned in the next week or so for the answers.
Hi ladies! My first time here and loving all the info I am reading. Little over whelming however I am working through it all. Question some of the sub you have been referring too such as flours, brown rice and broths, is this for gluten free?
Thank you for all this information, it is very helpful.
I’m not exactly sure what you are asking but this post was written before we had multiple menus so I think that is referring more to making the Traditional menu healthier in general. Now we have a wide variety to make life a bit easier and hopefully help you to not have to alter menus as often.