Healthy Christmas Dinner Festive Food Ideas
Posted on December 17th, 2008 by admin
Have a happy, hearty Christmas feast!
Christmas is a time of year for indulging in good food and drink with family and friends. Here are some ways you can have a hearty, healthy and happy celebration to remember.
Christmas lunch can be a very nutritious meal – in theory, it contains all the right ingredients, from plenty of vegetables to low-fat turkey meat. In practice, the issue is the sheer amounts we tend to eat in one go – in fact many of us will eat up to 6,000 calories on Christmas Day. That’s the daily allowance for three women or two and a half men!
With a few little changes here and there you can cut down on the calories, and still have a delicious, indulgent Christmas dinner. Here are some tips to give you some ideas:
| Instead of: | Why not try: |
| Fat-laden pate starter | Home-made vegetable soup. It’s delicious, warming and you’ll get one of your 5-a-day. Butternut squash with a hint of ginger is very moreish.Or a salmon starter – full of those heart-friendly omega-3 fish oils And if using smoked salmon, gently rinse or sponge it first to remove excess salt. |
| Goose-fat roast potatoes – high in saturated fats | Olive-oil roast potatoes – a source of cholesterol-lowering unsaturated fats |
| Boiling your Christmas veg | Steam them. You’ll keep more of the vitamins in the vegetables |
| Roast duck, goose, beef, pork or lamb | Turkey (it’s much lower in fat and very traditional, not to mention cheaper too) |
| Bread sauce ready mix | Homemade bread sauce, made from crumbled, stale bread with semi-skimmed milk and a clove of garlic. It’ll be much lower in salt and fat and much tastier |
| Ready made sausage meat – a high-fat stuffing (100g can have 16g of fat) | Chestnut stuffing – it’s low in fat and a good source of potassium, which will help to lower your blood pressure by countering the effects of salt. (100g of cranberry, orange and chestnut stuffing has just 0.8g of fat) |
| Ice cream and cream – full of saturated fat | Sorbet, frozen yoghurt or crème fraiche (all of which are light and delicious) |
| Christmas pudding | Christmas pudding! It’s low in fat, high in fruit and a great Christmas treat – so tuck in! Just go easy on the cream and custard. |
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