I’ve been asked several times where I get my recipes from, but I don’t have one particular cookbook that I rely on. Most of my recipes are my healthful adaptations of recipe calling for processed or low quality ingredients. Something I especially appreciate about cooking in line with traditional guidelines and methods is how easy it is to convert recipes from any cookbook so that the final result benefits your health. Once you know how to make conversions and substitutes, it’s easy to adapt any recipe you find and make a healthy version.
I know a lot of people find the idea of improving their diets intimidating and aren’t sure where to start. I also know some people feel like they need special recipes that expressly call for the healthy ingredients they want to use. I thought I’d share some basic guidelines so you can see how simple it is to improve the quality of your diet without introducing too much new and different stuff that the family may turn up their noses at, and easily expand your repertoire of recipes.
Shortening/margarine/vegetable oil – instead use butter or coconut oil. This works wonderfully for baking and frying. Substitute it in the exact measure for the unhealthy fat that the recipe calls for. Cold pressed vegetable oils can be used in salads (I use extra virgin olive, flaxseed, and occasionally some others), but not for frying or baking, as they aren’t stable at high temperatures. In my opinion this is the most important thing to get rid of and replace with something better. Fortunately, this is easy to do and can be purchased at your local health food store.
White sugar, brown sugar – instead use organic sucanat (regular sucanat is usually glorified sugar) or honey. Sucanat is easy to substitute for sugar because of its granular quality, and can be used in equal amounts to the sugar the recipe calls for. Because honey has such an intense sweetness, you can use fifty percent honey for the amount of sugar called for (eg 1/2 cup instead of one cup) to have the same am9ount of sweetness. Personally, my ratios are lower since I find most recipes too sweet for us; we use 1/4 c. of honey or 1/2 c. sucanat for every cup of sugar called for. Organic sucanat is available at health food stores and sometimes found in the health section of large supermarkets.
White flour – instead use white whole wheat flour. Nutritionally it’s the same as the darker whole wheat flour ground from hard red wheat berries, but the color is much lighter so the final product will more closely resemble the original recipe. Substitute 7/8 of a cup of whole wheat flour for every cup of white flour. I buy hard white wheat berries and grind my own flour, but you can buy King Arthur’s white whole wheat flour at health food stores.
For animal products – chicken, meat, eggs, milk – use the highest quality product you can find/afford (ideally, pastured eggs, free range meat, raw milk – but any small improvement in this area is worthwhile).
For any processed ingredients, substitute a homemade version or a healthful store bought substitute. For example, instead of regular peanut butter I use organic peanut butter/cashew butter/almond butter that are pure nut butters with sea salt added, nothing else. Instead of white flour pasta, buy a higher quality whole grain version or make your own.
All of these things are very, very easy to do – it’s using similar ingredients to replace the less healthful ones. Small changes that result in major qualitative improvements in the final product.
In addition to using good ingredients, there are a couple of traditional preparation techniques that can be integrated into most recipes. I’ve written about several of these techniques in detail in past posts, and will just reference them here.
In most recipes that call for flour (quick breads, cakes, muffins), you can substitute buttermilk/thinned yogurt for part of the liquid the recipe calls for, and soak the flour overnight in the buttermilk or yogurt, adding the rest of the ingredients the next morning. Alternatively, you can purchase sprouted flour, that doesn’t require any soaking and or advance preparation, either online or at your local health food store.
When cooking with beans, soak them a couple of days in advance and let them begin to sprout before cooking as usual.
Cooking healthfully isn’t hard, and it’s fun to be able to convert any recipe into something that will nourish your family!
(This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays.)
Avivah
I’ve been wanting to ask is there anything you’d recommend in place of coconut oil, as my DH is coconut-intolerant (i.e. I don’t think he’s deathly allergic, but it doesn’t agree with him, and he doesn’t want it in the kitchen – mine is in the bathroom for use on my hair and skin, which it’s also wonderful for).
I’ve suggested replacing our (very rare) margarine usage with butter (we’re vegetarians, but he still wants something parev, just in case).
Organic palm shortening – http://www.spectrumorganics.com/?id=87. It’s flavorless, odorless, and pareve.
This stuff is great and works very well to replace margarine and butter (minus the taste obviously as well as shortening. I could get this easily in Japan of all places and used it a lot!
I was also wondering about this because my son is highly allergic to coconut…and butter is milchig which isn´t always practical
Here’s a link for Sucanat with free shipping. This is definitely cheaper than what I pay for the same bag at my local health food store. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000EA3M92?tag=wwworganicsug-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=B000EA3M92&adid=07RQ4ERPBF1GC3TV4TZ7&
Avivah, do you have a source for larger bags than these?
That looks like a great price for that size package, Shoshana – thanks for sharing the link! I buy fifty pound bags for about $90 through a supermarket, and pick it up in person so there’s no shipping cost. If I had to have it shipped the added cost would be significant. I’ve never used Azure Standard but they do have 50 lb bags (http://www.azurestandard.com/search.php?q=organic+sucanat) and you could contact them to see about price. I would expect it would still work out cheaper than buying the small bags with free shipping, and it’s so nice to buy a large amount and not have to worry about running out!
Does ghee count as a milk product? All the milk solids have been removed.
Animal fat is a valid choice. There is tallow and chicken fat. I save poultry fat when I roast a chicken, duck or turkey. It is carefully separated from the juices using a gravy separator. If it has too strong a flavor from the seasonings, it can be boiled in water, allowed to cool and skimmed off. The impurities will sink into the water. It is easiest to put it outside in winter so it will harden. It will go bad in the fridge, so I keep it in the freezer. What makes me happiest about chicken fat is that it’s FREE!!! Butter and coconut oil is expensive.
Hi, RadiantLux, welcome!
Ghee would be considered a dairy product according to kosher laws.
I was wondering if someone would comment about animal fats! I routinely save the fat from broths and roasted poultry/meat to cook with. I don’t think they’re best used interchangeably in baking, though.
For most kinds of cooking, they’re great- I just this morning skimmed a bunch of lamb fat from the broth I made last night. Sooo yummy when sauteing onions or anything else! We mashed some into the baby’s baked sweet potatoes for lunch, too. 🙂
Thanks for the great tip on how to reduce the seasoning flavor if it’s too strong – I never knew about that!
Avivah, do you know if sprouted flour requires a hechsher?
And do sprouted bread products need to be pas yisroel (for those who keep it)?
Funny you should ask this – just today I was placing my bulk order and considering ordering the sprouted flour that they just started carrying but then then decided not to spend the money on it this month. When I called the main distributor who has the official certification info, I was planning to ask about the kashrus status of it but forgot!
Good question about the pas yisroel issue; this isn’t something that I hold by so I haven’t researched it, but I would suspect not, since I believe I have friends who eat Ezekiel bread who hold by pas yisroel.
If you do some research on if it needs a hechsher and the pas yisroel question, please let me know what you learn!
Ezekiel is pas yisrael. For other brands, you can call the certifying agency, and they’ll be able to tell you. Some of them have web sites where you can search for a product and get all the info that wouldn’t necessarily be written on the package.
Thanks for the clarification on Ezekiel bread; as I said, this isn’t my area of experience or expertise!
Regarding palm oil- is the processed palm oil you buy pesach time healthier or less healthy than other processed vegetable oils?
I don’t know exactly what kind of product you’re referring to, but generally saturated fats aren’t processed as are vegetable oils so my answer would be that your palm oil is probably is better than processed vegetable oils.
Your stores don’t carry palm oil at pesach time? This palm oil doesnt say anything like virgin olive oil, or cold pressed or whatever. It just says Shemen Dkalim. You don’t know what I’m talking about?
Since you live in a different country than I do, it’s not so surprising that we have different products, is it? 🙂 I think I answered the question, though.
In America, the default Pesach oil (aside from extra virgin olive oil) is cottonseed, which in Israel is considered kitniyos. I was so confused the year we lived in Israel! Here in the US, if you search, you can get grapeseed oil and safflower oil, which in conventional health terms is much healthier than cottonseed (I am not sure what the alternative health people say about these oils).