Monthly Health Challenge™
Use Healthier Ingredients
Prepare
healthier meals
with substitute
ingredients
Requirements to complete
this Health Challenge™
1. Read “Use Healthier Ingredients.”
2. Practice using healthier ingredients on at least
22 days this month.
3. Keep a record of your completed health challenge
in case your organization requires documentation.
K
Roasted Beet-Tofu Burger from
the Fatfree Vegan Kitchen
tinyurl.com/yz28h76
ansas resident Kelli Poles was
a stand-out college basketball
player. She practiced with the
team, exercised in the gym, and
ate healthfully. Then an injury
forced her to sit out the season.
She quit exercising, turned to
food, and started gaining weight.
Her nemesis: fast-food burgers.
Kelli topped out at more than 100 pounds overweight.
That’s when she reached out for help. She landed a spot
on the show Extreme Weight Loss. Trainer Chris Powell
challenged her with daily workouts. And celebrity chef
Rocco DiSpirito showed her how to make healthier meals,
including an 80-calorie burger.
“I decided to make it entirely vegan,” says DiSpirito. “I even
used beets in the mix so that when you finish cooking the
burger, it looks like it’s medium rare.” DiSpirito’s patty was
made from veggies. Vegans also eat whole grains, beans,
fruits, seeds, and nuts.
And it worked. Using healthier ingredients to make burgers
and other meals, Poles lost 123 pounds in a year.
When you learn to eat better and choose the right foods, it
can have a positive impact on your overall health. Take the
month-long health challenge to Use Healthier Ingredients.
How much do you know about healthy options
for recipes? Take this quiz to find out.
T F
1. n n When a recipe calls for white flour, you
can swap at least half of it for whole-grain
flour to make the recipe healthier.
2. n n You can replace sour cream or whole
milk in a recipe with low-fat plain yogurt,
soymilk, or even pureed vegetables.
3. n n Applesauce works well in place of
butter, margarine, oil, or shortening.
4. n n Mashed bananas, pureed dates, or
applesauce can be used in place of sugar.
5. n n To use less salt, you can season foods with more
herbs and spices and still enjoy good flavor.
How did you do on this quiz about healthy ingredients? If
you missed a few, you could benefit from learning more
about ways to make food healthier. In many cases, small
changes to a recipe can make it healthier without sacrificing
taste. You really don’t have to use as much sugar, salt, or
high-fat ingredients called for in many recipes.
Answers: 1. True. 2. True. 3. True. 4. True. 5. True.
CHALLENGE
Recipe Ingredients a Measure
of Health
How’s your diet? Taking a closer look at what you’re eating
can be a good measure of your overall health. It’s one action
that helped Kelli lose weight, keep it off, and get in shape.
When you cook at home, how healthy are your meals?
Recipes that call for things like butter or shortening, heavy
cream, whole milk, cups of sugar, added salt, or white
flour aren’t all that healthy. They are higher in calories, fat,
sodium, and sugar. And they can harm your health. In fact,
poor nutrition is a leading cause of chronic disease and early
death in the United States.
But it’s not all bad news. Cook at home, and it’s easy to
swap less-than-healthy ingredients for better options.
A Little of This. A Dash of That.
To make healthier food, you don’t have to be a master chef
or nutrition expert. But you should know a few things about
healthy options you can use in place of common recipe
ingredients. A little of this and a dash of that is all it takes to
eat healthier. Here are some things you can do:
Hold off on whole milk
Many recipes for breads,
muffins, gravy, waffles,
pancakes, and desserts
call for whole milk.
But it’s high in calories
and fat. Skip the whole
milk, and use fat-free or
soymilk instead.
Healthy
recipes: A
guide to ingredient
substitutions
tinyurl.com/
oqell3y
No cream required
Some recipes call for
heavy cream. Like
whole milk, it’s loaded
with saturated fat and
calories. There’s a healthier
option. Use evaporated skim milk or
a blend of low-fat yogurt and low-fat
cottage cheese. Your soups, potato
casserole, biscuits, white sauce, and
desserts will be just as tasty!
Sour cream solutions
Sour cream is often used for baked
potatoes, taco dip, soups, pastries, and
some homemade salad dressings. An
easy swap is fat-free sour cream. Or,
you could use fat-free yogurt.
Cutting out cream cheese
When a recipe calls
for cream cheese for
things like alfredo
sauce, desserts, and
dips, go with fat-free
cream cheese. Or try a soy-based
option that tastes like cream cheese.
Better than butter
Butter. It’s used in a lot of
recipes and as a way to
flavor food. Forget
about lathering
pancakes with
butter or tossing in a whole cube to
make a batch of cookies. Use trans-fatfree soft margarine instead. Choose
margarine low in saturated fat and
zero trans fats. Try applesauce or
avocado puree sometime. You might
find you like it!
“The best ingredient is love!”
The egg alternative
Scrambled, sunnyside up, deviled, or
added to a recipe. Eggs
are high in cholesterol
and calories. But that’s mainly
from the yolk. Most recipes turn out
just fine using only the egg whites.
Substitute 1/4 cup liquid for each egg.
A cholesterol-free egg‑substitute also
works well.
Savor without salt
Health professionals
recommend eating
no more than 1,500 mg of sodium
(salt) per day. Yet most adults
consume 3,500 mg or more a day.
Salt does help bring out the flavor in
foods. But there’s a healthier option.
Use a variety of herbs and spices in
place of salt, like basil, dill weed,
garlic, thyme, or chili pepper.
Sweet alternative to sugar
Lots of recipes call for large amounts
of sugar. Think desserts, cookies,
pudding and pies. Sugar is high in
calories. And too much
of it can lead to
a host of health
problems. There’s
an easy way to lower
your risk for obesity,
diabetes, tooth decay, and heart
disease. Cut way down on how much
sugar you use. Use applesauce, mashed
bananas, or pureed dates to sweeten a
recipe. Honey or agave also
work in place of sugar.
Baking
Flour power
with wholegrain flours
tinyurl.com/
omzx4jq
Take a look at most
recipes for baked
goods, and you’ll see
white flour on the list
of ingredients. Sure, it’s made from
whole grain. But in the refining
process, white flour loses nutrients
when the bran and germ are stripped
away. Put some of these nutrients back
in your recipes and replace half of the
white flour with whole-wheat or other
whole-grain flour.
Cooking healthy meals at home
doesn’t have to be hard.
Take a look at the
83 healthy
meals and foods
recipe
you plan to make.
substitutions
Check the list of
tinyurl.com/
ingredients for the
onuvxc8
recipes you plan
to use. And see if you
can replace any of the ingredients
with these healthier options. You’ll
improve your diet and your health.
Sources: American Heart Association.; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.; Harvard School of Public Health.;
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
© Wellsource, Inc., Clackamas, Oregon. All rights reserved. For personal use only – do not make unauthorized copies. Written by Don Hall, DrPH, CHES.
Health Challenge™ Calendar
Use Healthier Ingredients
Instructions
CHALLENGE
Prepare
healthier meals
with substitute
ingredients
1. Post this calendar where you will see it daily (bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, etc.).
2. Record the number of days you use healthier ingredients.
3. Use the calendar to record your actions and choices to make using healthier
ingredients a regular part of your life.
4. At the end of the month, total the number of days you practice using healthier
ingredients. You must do this on at least 22 days this month to complete this
challenge. Then keep up the practice for a lifetime of best health.
MONTH:
SUNDAY
HC = Health Challenge™ ex. min. = exercise minutes
MONDAY
TUESDAY WEDNESDAYTHURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
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ex. min._______
ex. min._______
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
HC
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
ex. min._______
______ Number of days this month I used healthier ingredients
______ Number of days this month I got 30+ minutes of physical activity
Other wellness projects completed this month:
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
Name _______________________________________________ Date __________________________
© Wellsource, Inc., Clackamas, Oregon. All rights reserved. For personal use only – do not make unauthorized copies.
Weight
& weekly
summary