by Ronnee Ruselle

For those who are health conscious but don't have the time or money to make huge changes to their diet, you can still enjoy your favourite meals by making just a few small changes to your regular recipes. Below are some tips recommended by a dietitian for reducing fat when cooking.

1. When cooking, do not add oil, fat, margarine or butter. If you absolutely need something to grease a pan, use a light spray of cooking oil and drain or blot your meat with kitchen paper to remove excess fat from cooking.
2. Try low fat cooking methods such as steaming, poaching and grilling instead of frying.
4. Instead of a normal pan, Use a non stick frypan or a non-stick pan liner to avoid having to grease the pan.
5. When you saute:
   Use water or a small amount of stock and stir to prevent sticking.
6. When cooking meat or poultry:
   Remove all visible fat and skin (after cooking is okay to keep the meat tender). Roast on a rack over water.
7. When using butter, margarine or oil:
   Change to polyunsaturated and monounsaturated varieties and reduce by half. When buttering bread etc. use sparingly.
8. As a substitue for Cream:
   Use evaporated skim Milk, low fat yoghurt or buttermilk. Alternatively blend ricotta cheese with skim milk.
9. As an alternative for sour cream:
   Low fat yoghurt, buttermilk or evaporated skim milk. If you absolutely need sour cream, try using extra lite sour cream which has 15% fat rather than normal which has 36% fat.
10. If you need to use cheese:
    Try lower fat varieties and for a tasty crunchy coating on casseroles and baked dishes, try mixing grated parmesan or light mozzarella cheese with breadcrumbs.
11. As an alternative to cream cheese in a recipe:
    Try using cottage cheese or reduced fat ricotta cheese. If it must be cream cheese, go for the lite cream cheese which has 16% fat where the regular has 32% fat.