Healthy food swaps

1. Cut back the salt

Eating too much salt can increase your risk of developing high blood pressure. Look out for ingredients that add salt like soy sauce or stock and replace these with reduced-salt versions.

Remember you don’t have to add salt to season, even if it’s in the recipe – taste the food first to see if you need it.

2. Swap out saturated fat

Switching the types of fat you use in cooking is another quick win. Cutting back on saturated fats and using unsaturated fats instead could help you to lower your cholesterol, reducing your risk of heart disease. 

Replace butter, lard, goose fat, or ghee with an unsaturated oil like rapeseed, olive or sunflower, or spreads made from them. Using 5% instead of 20% fat beef mince, and low-fat milk and reduced-fat cheese, can also help you reduce the amount of saturated fat in a recipe.

In baking, you could use an unsaturated fat spread instead of butter – this is particularly useful for sponge cakes, which are lighter when made with a spread. Make sure it’s not a low-fat spread, however, as these don’t work well for baking. The nutritional information will show that per 100g it will have less than 20g of saturated fat and around 60g or more of total fat. It might also say ‘suitable for baking’.

3. Cut down sugars and fats

If your diet is too high in calories, over time this could lead to weight gain. Living with excess weight or obesity increases the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. All fats are high in calories, so even healthier unsaturated fats should be used in small amounts.

If a recipe calls for a tablespoon of added oils and fats, consider switching to a teaspoon – each tablespoonful of fat adds around 100 calories. The amount of sugar can also often be reduced by a quarter or even halved in many sweet recipes. 

4. Add more veg

Adding extra vegetables to a recipe is a great way to add more vitamins, minerals and fibre to your dish, as well as make it more colourful and flavoursome. By doing this you’ll help stretch out the dish. You’ll get more portions from the same recipe and lower the number of calories in one portion, which can help if you are trying to reduce your weight.

Easy additions are frozen spinach, added to curries or risotto at the end of cooking; peas and sweetcorn, stirred into cooked rice; or finely chopped carrots or peppers, added to dishes at the start of cooking. You could also add grated carrot or beetroot to things like homemade burgers or meatballs. 

5. Switch to wholemeal

Most of us need to add more fibre to our diets – so swap white starchy carbohydrates for wholegrain versions as much as you can. Use wholewheat instead of plain pasta and use brown instead of white rice. 

Always use wholegrain breads, too, and not just when you are using a sliced loaf. If you need pitta breads, English muffins, or tortilla wraps for things like homemade pizzas, burritos, or fajitas use wholemeal and seeded versions.

When it comes to baking, try replacing some of the white flour with wholemeal flour. Start by replacing a quarter to a half of the white flour with wholemeal flour for things like bread, cakes, biscuits and pastry. 

6. Rethink serving suggestions

If you can’t make any changes to your recipe, then think about how you serve it. When it comes to plating up, fill half of your plate with vegetables, fruit or salad before you add anything else. This will help to limit your portion size without making you feel short-changed. It will also help to fill you up.

Consider whether there are alternatives for toppings and garnishes like cheese or sour cream. Do you even need them or are you just adding them out of habit? If you do need them, try using reduced-fat cheese (and just a small amount) and low-fat Greek yogurt instead of cream or sour cream for soups, fajitas or dishes like chilli or curry.

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