Smoke Signals December 1989
Page 3
4-: a
Darlenc Aaron at a recent Health Committee meeting.
CELEBRATE THE
HOLIDAYS WITHOUT
GAINING WEIGHT
You get up early and start organizing pots and pans for
the Holiday feast (from the Latin festus, meaning joy).
Anticipating a long wait until dinner, you have a larger
breakfast than usual - orange juice, two slices of but
tered toast, jam, and an egg or two. As the guests
gather early in the afternoon, you offer, and partake of,
snacks and drinks. (We won't count the samplings in the
kitchen to see if things are turning out right.) At 3:00
you serve turkey with all the trimmings. You cannot
resist second helpings, and you would be silly, after all
this, to refuse whipped cream on the pie. You do the
cleaning up, somehow, and take a nap. Around 9:00 you
fix yourself a cold turkey sandwich with mayonnaise, a
bit of stuffing, and cranberry sauce, and eat another slice
of that delicious pie. Such a day's intake can easily hit
the 4,500 to 5,500 calorie mark. If you usually eat, say,
2,000 to 2,500 calories a day, you've consumed nearly
3,000 extra calories, much of it from fat. Result: you've
probably gained almost a pound.
To pare calorics, here are some tips:
For snacks before dinner, serve a selection of raw
vegetables and sliced raw fruits with high-fiber
flatbreads instead of high-fat crackers. Mexican salsa is
an excellent fat-free dip. Nonfat or low-fat yogurt or
blended low-fat cottage cheese makes a good subsitute
for sour cream in dips.
Don't feel you have to serve or drink high-calorie
cocktails. If you offer alcoholic drinks, pour measured
amounts and don't push refills. Champagne and other
wines taste good (and the drink lasts longer) when
blended with, respectively, juice or club soda. Serve soft
drinks, such as flavored sparkling water on the rocks or
blended with fruit juice, or alcohol-free Bloody Marys
(highly spiced tomato juice).
Don't eat the turkey skin, which contributes about
one-third the fat in a typical serving of poultry. Breast
meat has fewer calories and much less fat than dark
meat- in fact, without the skin, it's one of the leanest
meats there is.
The day before, make a generous amount of chicken
or turkey stock and defat it. (Easiest way: chill the
stock after removing the bones and vegetables, then
skim and discard the congealed fat.) If you don't want to
make stock, chill storebought stock in the can and skim
the fat before using.
Use it as follows:
- Use the defatted stock as a base for soup-the result will
be much lower in calories than cream soups.
- Use it for basting, rather than butter.
- Use it to moisten stuffing ingredients, halving or
eliminating the large amounts of butter or margarine
most recipes call for. Remember, too, stuffing will
generally have less fat (and be a less likely source of
salmonella poisoning) if cooked separately rather than
in the turkey cavity.
- For gravy, pour off the fat from the drippings; add
some of your fat-free stock to the remaining drippings.
- Serve sweet potatoes plain instead of candied, or mash
them with orange juice and garnish with orange slices or
pineapple. Acorn squash and rutabagas are lower
calorie substitutes for sweet potatoes.
- plain, steamed green vegetables (sting beans, Brussels
sprouts, or broccoli) and pearl onions without the cream
sauce are an attractive addition to the richer fare.
- Make your own cranberry sauce, and experiment with
smaller amounts of sugar than the package calls for. -
- Remember that in most recipes two egg whites can
replace one whole egg, and low-fat or skim milk works
as well as whole.
- For low-fat piecrusts, use crushed graham crackers
moistened with fruit juice and then baked.
MENU1:
Breakfast Calories
1 cup orange juice HO
2 slices toast 135
ltbsp. butter 100
ltbsp.jam 55
2 eggs, scrambled in butter 220
1 cup coffee with cream J5
TOTAL: . 665
Appetizers
10 potato chips (with creamy dip) 105,
5 crackers with cheese 175
leupeggnog . 342
TOTAL: 740
Dinner
8 oz. champagne 170
6 oz. turkey, white & dark meat,
with skin 345
14 cup gravy 30
1 cup standard stuffing 500
2 candied sweet potatoes 285
1 cup buttered steamed green beans 70
2 rolls, buttered 240
1 4 cup canned cranberry sauce 105
1 slice pecan pie, with whipped cream 520
TOTAL: 2,265
Supper
turkey sandwich, with mayo, cranberry
sauce, standard stuffing 585
1 slice pecan pie 495
1 cup whole milk J5J)
TOTAL: 1,230
MENU 2: (low-fat)
Breakfast
Calories
DAYS TOTAL:
calories from fat:
4,890
44
1 cup orange juice
2 slices toast
1 tbsp. jam
1 cup of coffee with low-fat milk
TOTAL:
Appetizers
5 pretzels
with low-fat yogurt dip
raw vegetables with salsa
12 cup egg nog
TOTAL:
Dinner
4 oz. champagne
6 oz. turkey, white meat, no skin
14 cup low-fat gravy
1 cup low-fat stuffing
1 cup acorn squash
1 cup steamed green beans
2 rolls
14 cup low-sugar cranberry sauce
1 slice pumpkin pie
TOTAL:
Supper,
turkey sandwich, with low-fat
stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy
1 slice melon
1 cup of skim milk
TOTAL:
DAYS TOTAL:
Calories from fat:
110
135
55
J5
315
120
35
40
170
365
85
230
20
125
115
35
170
85
125.
1,040
345
45
J!5
475
2,195
11
-Courtesy of the University of California, Berkely
Wellness Letter (U of C School or Health)
November 1989 .
-Ay? 'M
BIA Representative Brenda Shadwick cave a presenta
tion concerning general assistance to Tribal members at
the November General Council meeting.