The big game is coming up soon!
It’s often hard to maintain healthy eating habits with the typical football party offerings, but you don’t have to sacrifice taste in order to eat healthy. Most every tailgate dish can be made healthier.
- The key to satisfying snacks is all in the spice. Spices provide satisfying flavor and help reduce the need for added salt and fat.
- Substituting ground chicken and turkey in traditional beef-based recipes can significantly reduce calories and saturated fat content. For instance, chicken & white bean chili or turkey & black bean chili recipes can reduce the fat content by two-thirds and saturated fat content by over 50 percent.
- Add interest and nutrients by choosing chili recipes that contain butternut squash or sweet potatoes, which add a sweet and spicy contrast in flavor. You can further reduce the fat content and boost the fiber content by making bean-based vegetarian chili.
- For the appetizers, go lean by making turkey meatballs or buffalo chicken salad.
- Avoiding processed meats like sausage, bratwurst and hot dogs, which are high in fat and sodium. Turkey, black bean, mushroom or plant-based burgers are a healthier option.
- For snacks, kale chips and roasted chickpeas are simple, make-at-home options.
- If you can’t leave the chips and dip behind, try purchasing baked chips, or even vegetable or bean-based chips available in your grocery store. Make yogurt-based dips to decrease fat content, and limit portion size.
- Air-popped popcorn is another option for healthier snacking.
