Healthy Foods Substituting Ingredients

Healthy foods can substitute processed and other ingredients that your body doesn’t use as nutrition.

Getting to love these foods can take gradual changes.

And food variety and curiosity can create opportunities.

Eating healthy got me interested in cooking healthy foods and using healthier ingredients later in life post-catering management work days. Those days I rarely cooked as I was always around decadent foods from a hotel kitchen.

And then stepping away from party planning and into the pandemic days, I started to home cook and bake daily.

One ingredient at a time, I exchanged filler and not so great ingredients for healthy ones.

It started with interest and fascination with  exchanging a simple ingredient like  yeast for eggs, gives  you risen bread instead of pasta.

That’s the same sort of small ingredient change that you can make in daily meal planning (even if you don’t cook today), that can make a big difference in your health.

But first, you need to know what to do.

“When you know better, you do better.” -Maya Angelou 

Btw, as of today, Maya Angelou is now appearing on minted quarters (so her legacy advice is even more valuable!).

But anyway… long before I learned to cook, I didn’t care so much about the quality of ingredients as I did the final product taste.

And for work, I planned catering events in hotels and restaurants, and I can’t think of a single instance where there was a request for a full-on healthy party menu (over good tasting meals). That theme never came up in conversations. In throwing successful events, enjoyable and making happy memories in those situations means serving an unforgettable mouthful of delicious.

Once in a while, sprinkled in the mix, there would be a request for healthier alternatives because of food allergies, or for a raw vegetable crudite platter that was considered veg-forward, and to start the party off on a light note. Or for conference event planning, where the catered food was the main daily food the guests were eating and the host planner wanted healthier energy and “brain food” served. But those were the exceptions.

And that’s partly because eating rich foods for a day or eating out for a few days doesn’t have the same consequences as it does for daily eating that become the routines and habits.

When you have an overall goal to stay healthy or be health-conscious, you care about the overall weekly diet and the ingredients. And if you’re the one cooking and adding the ingredients, you get to decide how much of this or that you add to meals. That can very rewarding and I share a few tips below whether or not you cook today.

…You just never know what will be a good source of inspo to get you cookin’ and as I found on my journey.

I never say never, but if you live near a city especially, gardening isn’t usually the main source for full-on meals.  But many of us cook regularly as we want to learn how to make new dishes and develop cooking skills confidence.

So that’s my first tip for anyone: to try and cook more often even if you don’t think you can boil an egg or make a box of pasta. We all start somewhere! When you make/cook your food, you start to think about your foods more than when you’re just eating, heating, or ordering food in. And that brings more awareness to eating healthy foods if that’s a goal you have.

And in that case, making everyday recipes that have sticks of butter or shortening just won’t cut it. At first, you can be feeling at odds following recipes that have a mix of healthy and not-so-healthy ingredients. That’s part of the journey.

I always start with the ingredients. If I don’t like what’s in it, then I just skip the recipe or food. But when you’re starting out, following a recipe is easier and can be more fruitful… just in case you needed some cooking encouragement to keep trying.

Our EVOO society has also made it easier. That’s what I call it because EVOO (thank you to the Mediterranean diet) is often used in restaurants over butter, that used to be the standard.

A healthy monounsaturated fat like EVOO (as in EVeryday olive oil + extra virgin) used with a light hand drizzle is going to be a good substitute for your body health. Just add a few drops and then spread it around the pan with a baton flick of the ninja cooking wrist 😊. Just sayin’ too much of a good thing is too much.

But a little bit benefits your cooking too. Besides food flavor and a glisten, this keeps your food and pans from cooking heat burns.

The biggest goes to body health of course. So, my second tip is to substitute butter with healthier ingredients like applesauce or yogurt for baking, and ghee or EVOO for cooking when you can.

Traditional Christmas Cookies are the sweet recipe exception I have found that isn’t the same without the buttery taste-texture. But even in that context, I still think (and from my own baking experiments) know that butter can be substituted, and still be just as delicious and enjoyable. You may just have to get a ‘lil more creative with the cookie decorating.

…I made these (above photo) bak-love-a layers with light EVOO (that’s great for sweet and savory baking). I only used butter to add on the top layer glaze to please my younger self.🤷🏻‍♀️

Just an example that balanced moderation can be effectively added into recipes where it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I find hard and fast rules can fall flat and in the category elimination diet that I tend to stay away from. I think eating diverse, mostly plant-based, and moderation for most everything else is the way to go and the way I go (and maybe you too?).

But, this is a healthy leap from when I started my baking journey using ingredients like shortening that you still see in Southern comfort cooking recipes.

Aah… but, when I knew better, I did better. And that could be your journey.

Like I learned butter is made from heavy cream and if you keep whipping, it easily turns to butter. It’s lessons like this where you can get revelations like I did, that an ingredient’s makeup and consistency is (ex)changeable. And so, ingredients are not fixed as what we know them as. They can be substituted and swapped in recipes.

A good example would be substituting sugar with healthy foods like dried fruits, fruit zest, or honey (that can help allergies too).

These types of little changes make big difference to health, and how you feel in your day. And, maybe the bottom line… or the waistline (yay!).

Or, maybe you’re a natural Vata (or know of some)…that’s me too 🙋🏻‍♀️, where you may have inherited the thinner genes and higher metabolism. You still have to watch the fats.

If you’re a female adult, you wanna make sure you’re not “skinny fat” that’s a good healthy measurement. You can do this by comparing your waist to hip ratio (where most women can aim for under 80%).

There are no shortcuts to good health as your body has a different opinion on what it needs that’s different than our tastes and wants.

Another healthy substitute is oats and grits for pie crusts, cookies, and brownies mixed with apple sauce or yogurt and honey. When you bake, then you can make these swaps pretty easily, both butter and gluten-free (without flour).

But when you shop from grocery shelves that’s a different story as pie shells look harmless, despite not-so healthy ingredients. And healthy foods don’t jump off the shelves either.

That’s how I started, not really paying attention to nutrition labels and ingredients. Then along my healthful journey, I decided not to choose Mister Donut of any kind, fresh or not, because I knew and know what’s in them. Besides taste, very little. And lots of sugar and fat. And I trained myself from awareness to look at them like that, and see the missing-ness through the hole in the middle.

But for others, and you, that could just as easily be another processed food item where the consequence is known and inevitable.

When a tradeoff is determined as individually undesirable, then you beneficially want to give it up (and don’t HAVE to give it up that can cause an internal conflict).

These btw (below) are “donut hole” inspo w-hole bites and balls of energy that anyone can bake and substitute for high-sugar and fat.

When you pause on the processed foods, you can gradually not desire to eat the super-sweet stuff anymore. It can work if you work it. And then you actually like the taste of healthy foods.

Your habits then become your choices.

If you’ve ever fasted, then you probably know the feeling… because after a while you can stop caring or obsessing about eating (like I did in fasting experiences). I’m not a good faster but I’ve attempted fasting sweets.

After a day or so, you can stop craving whatever you’re fasting from because you, your mind, and your body are in agreement that you don’t need those foods (at least not now). So, then you’re satisfied. And that’s all you need to care about when it comes to eating enjoyment. Being content to be happy.

…I remember the days when I got teased by friends for eating healthy and selecting healthy food choices. I felt bad they didn’t know what I knew in nutrition, and sadly, that adds aging stress on the body. Our bodies are tricky and complex and has a different daily systematic agenda that doesn’t necessarily like our unhealthy choices after swallowed or initial taste bud food changes that we choose (that can be unhealthy or healthy foods).

I knew back then (even if it was subconscious) that I wanted to live without eating regrets or damaging the one body we’re given, so I followed my instincts and those became habits. When you don’t take for granted your body’s resiliency, that can help you to want to be healthier.

Plus, we have so much more food sources and healthy information available to us now that allows us to buy ingredients in person, online, and from global sources.

When your body is used to you eating healthy, another healthy food strategy (and final tip) is to switch up the healthy foods and ingredients regularly. Switching up foods is fun.

It’s an enjoyable game you can play that you’ll never get sick of and is what your body wants for you as it craves good taste and healthy variety.

Plus, if a food is labeled bad or good and that evolves or changes, like nuts used to be deemed bad and now are great healthy fats, then you haven’t put all your eggs in one basket 🥚🥚… you know what I mean, Jelly Bean 😉.