Make recipes healthier by swapping ingredients

[00:00:00] Host Amber Smith: Here's some expert advice from registered dietitian Heather Dorsey from Upstate Medical University. What foods can you make healthier by swapping ingredients?

[00:00:11] Heather Dorsey, RD: When recipes call for sour cream, substituting in Greek yogurt -- richer in protein, lower in calories. Another really good one, and this especially goes for a lot of the holidays that are coming up, we love mashed potatoes. What's a nice thing to do is either do mashed cauliflower, which some people don't like the flavor of, just the mashed cauliflower alone. So I always say, just try, go 50/50, do half mashed cauliflower, half mashed potatoes. Or even mix it in with mashed sweet potatoes. It lowersthe calorie point. It also lowers the starch, because potatoes are a more starchy vegetable.

Baking is a big thing for the holiday season. Switching out just your flour, using whole wheat flour versus all-purpose flour. And I always like to stress nuts with cooking, really ground-up almonds, walnuts, put them in pie crust or sprinkle them on top for a nice crumbly topping. It adds a lot of nutrition benefits, and it goes a long way. Oil can be substituted with applesauce, preferably unsweetened applesauce. Butters can be substituted with nut butters or almond butters like peanut butter -- but look to make sure that your peanut butter and your almond butters are low in sugar.You can substitute pasta with zucchini noodles. That's a really good swap-out, and sometimes it makes the entree a little bit more colorful, which is nice and healthy, lower in calories and richer in fiber. Of course, that swap of white rice, if you're going to be serving white rice, maybe do brown rice or mix in brown rice with the white rice or even some wild rice -- more vibrant colors and definitely higher in fiber and more nutritious.

Playing around with herbs, that's a big one that I think a lot of peoplereally need to try to incorporate into their diets because instead of using salt for flavor, really sampling, more cinnamon, more cumin, more tarragon, more even cayenne pepper, just putting some things into their items that are herb related versus adding salt for flavor.

And then, a good thing to put out for a sweet treat is definitely dark chocolate versus milk chocolate because it's definitely healthier for you as far as antioxidants are concerned.

[00:02:28] Host Amber Smith: You've been listening to registered dietitian Heather Dorsey from Upstate Medical University.