Written by Catherine Saxelby
on Friday, 07 September 2012.
Tagged: balanced diet, eating out, guides, healthy cooking, healthy eating, tips, weight loss
Do you have a sweet tooth? Love to check out the desserts on the menu before anything else? Rather than denying yourself (and binging later on), here's how you can indulge a little yet still eat light and not blow everything!
With fruit as the basis of your desserts, you will always find it easy to make them low-fat. Fruit is naturally sweet, refreshes and cleanses the mouth, is full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, and is low in fat. Something fruity works well after a heavy or spicy main such as a curry.
Pineapple, nectarines, apricots and peaches all lend themselves to a super-quick dessert. It's dead simple - or I wouldn't be telling you about it! Prepare the fruit by cutting in half and removing the stone or peeling and cutting a whole pineapple. Sprinkle or coat in brown sugar and place under a preheated grill for 3-5 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Add a little ground nutmeg or fresh grated ginger before grilling if you fancy. It goes golden and yummy with a hint of caramelised sugar. Serve with low-fat ice cream or anything from the list below ....
Swap cream or high fat premium ice cream sides with:
And to finish it off, add a sponge finger biscuit, thin almond wafer or biscotti for flavour with minimum fat.
If you crave a pastry, here are two ways to cut the kilojoules without cutting any of the satisfaction:
1. For a fruit pie, only use one crust - the top or bottom. It not only halves the fat and kilojoules, it also saves you time.
2. Use filo pastry (about 3g fat/100g) instead of high fat pastries, such as puff or shortcrust (about 40g fat/100g), to encase apples or apricots in crisp, paper-thin layers. Before baking lightly brush pastry with canola oil (or use a spray) or orange juice.
Berries make the most sensational end to any meal and have one of the lowest kilojoule counts of all fruit. At around 250 kilojoules (60 Calories) for a 200g punnet, you can afford to have a big helping of blueberries, strawberries, raspberries or blackberries.
And when they are out of season, simply buy them frozen from your supermarket.
As a general guide, when you're eating out, follow these tips for dessert:
Catherine Saxelby has the answers! She is an accredited nutritionist, blogger and award-winning author. Her award-winning book My Nutritionary will help you cut through the jargon. Do you know your MCTs from your LCTs? How about sterols from stanols? What’s the difference between glucose and dextrose? Or probiotics and prebiotics? What additive is number 330? How safe is acesulfame K? If you find yourself confused by food labels, grab your copy of Catherine Saxelby’s comprehensive guide My Nutritionary NOW!
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