I have recently been told, for health reasons, I need to cut animal fats (butter, lard, ghee, and the fat on meat) out of my diet… completely. In addition, I was also advised to use minimal vegetable fat in preparing meals which left me thinking I’d never eat tasty food again.
If you’re like me and eating is a true pleasure, you’ll understand the immediate dread I felt as I watched the doctor walk out of my hospital room having delivered news which will certainly change me eating, and more importantly cooking, habits.
Then the dietician walked into the room and added a host of my favourite foods to the “no go” list. These included three I thought might just be the end of me: chocolate, readymade cappuccino with creamer in it and …. PIZZA. Oh, the horrors!
Gone are the creamy sauces I love so much with my pasta, away with the little guilty pleasure of a nice piece of fat on my biltong and wave good-bye to rich gravies with my ostrich steak. No more tasty steaks, and I’ll have to cut off that delicious burnt fat strip that makes braai ’ed steak that much tastier.
If you’re in the same boat as me and facing a life free of added fats in your diet, fear not – healthy, tasty food is just a trick or two away.
It’s not as bad as it seems
To her credit, the dietician’s list includes three columns – eat as much as you want, eat in moderation and forbidden foods – and there are very few in the latter column (although my three favs above are in that column). While some vegetables are in the moderation category, none of them are forbidden and only the skins of fruit are a problem. As long as apples, for example, are peeled it’s a case of “eat away.” I am a lover of almost all fruits and vegetables, so this was good news. Added to that, once the fat or skin has been removed, all fish, chicken, pork, and beef are on the safe list. Mince, of course, is tricky but a beef steak is still there on the approved list, so my world started to look inhabitable once more.
On my first night home, I sat down to consider what life would look like cooking with any additional fat in my meals. I immediately turned to one of my favourite childhood cookbooks – The Best of Cooking in South Africa by Lynn Bedford Hall – and found a great recipe for roasted carrots with sherry and honey. She also has one for roasted carrots in orange juice which I have made several times before. I can assure you that both these recipes are wonderful and not a drop or scrap of butter or oil is needed to make either of these delicious side dishes.
With my carrots in the oven, I coated a juice Karan beef steak in Teriyaki sauce and fried it on the Miracle Grill Mat which I put into my electric frying pan. Don’t let the word “fried” confuse you, with this non-stick mat and the sauce on the meat no butter was used to fry my steak to perfection. A few boiled potatoes dressed with apple cider vinegar rounded of a most excellent, and tasty, meal.
Now you may be thinking to yourself, “Sam, that’s one meal, how long can you keep this up?”
The answer is simple – 3 nights so far and counting. Night two included steam fish which I cooked with carrot ribbons, soya sauce, pickled Sushi ginger, fish sauce and lemon juice. More boiled potatoes and some green beans. Night two was wrap night – a brown bread wrap (no white bread allowed), left over steak as described above, mushrooms fried in Hoisin sauce, raw carrot ribbons, plain low-fat yoghurt, and low-fat hummus.
Low fat recipes
If you’re looking for a low-fat recipe, here are some sites that have interesting recipes to get you started. I haven’t tried them yet, so if you do and they work well, please let me know.
Of course, you can find loads of recipes on the internet but some of them need to be adapted to make them fat free. Here are some ideas of what you can replace fat and oil with. This is of course not an exhaustive list and I welcome your suggestions in the comment.
Frying in oil:
Teriyaki or Hoisin sauce for meat.
Lemon juice or stock for fish and seafood.
Lemon and herb sauce for chicken.
Stock for fish, chicken, and meat.
Cream or coconut cream / milk:
Yoghurt.
Low fat evaporated milk.
Non-fat sour cream.
Keep an eye on my Pintrest page for weekly tips on cooking without added fat. These tips are published every Wednesday.
That’s all for this week but I'll be back next week to chat about a new topic. If you have a blog idea you’d like me to write about in this blog, please leave a comment here or email me on samsgourmetgathering@gmail.com
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