Low Fat Cooking for Children

Marion our guest author from www.delicious-low-fat-recipes.com teaches us about low fat cooking for children.

We all know that too much fat in our diet can be bad for us, and therefore practising low fat cooking can be an excellent way of helping to protect our family’s health. Too much fat in our diets, especially the wrong kinds of fat, can lead to obesity and increased risk of serious diseases like diabetes, heart trouble, and stroke. Unfortunately, bad eating habits can start early in life, and once set, may be difficult to reverse. It is essential then, that our children eat healthily from the word go, with the right kind of varied diet.




Children need a certain amount of fat in their diet for proper growth and development, but the evidence is that many children in the Western world are consuming too much of the wrong sorts of fat- saturated fat and trans fats. We should try to limit the amounts of these kinds of fats in our food, and it is possible to do this and still enjoy tasty meals that even our children will eat.

Low Fat Cooking for Children Ideas

Saturated fats come mainly from animal food sources and it is best to cut back on fatty meats and favour instead the lean cuts of beef, and low fat meats like chicken and turkey. Bacon can be high in fat, and a healthier alternative is lean turkey bacon.

Many popular foods like sausages are extremely high in fat content and need to be restricted in consumption. Low fat cooking uses smaller portions of meat to give flavour to other ingredients, still keeping sufficient protein in the meal but not making it overwhelming. There are ingredients like tomato based and chilli sauces that can enhance flavour in a meal with spaghetti, noodles or rice, without too much meat content. If you are using mince it is worth paying a little more for good quality mince with less fat content.

For kids’ low fat burgers you can use turkey mince or a mixture of turkey with beef or pork. Fish is a great alternative source of protein without the problems of saturated fats. Some fish like salmon has fat but it’s ok because it is healthy fat containing important nutrients like omega-3s. These days there are even meat substitutes like Quorn that can be used in many dishes traditionally involving minced meat.

Methods of Low Fat Cooking for Children

Cooking methods such as baking, broiling, boiling, and microwaving are preferable to frying as there is much less fat involved. If you have to fry occasionally it is better to use monounsaturated oil, and only in small amounts. A spray is a good way to get a thin film over a wok or frying pan with little oil. Modern Teflon coated pans enable food to be cooked with less oil.

When making chips or French fries, for example, you can bake them in the oven with just a thin coating of oil, rather than deep frying, and this gives a much healthier result. Baking foods instead of frying can still give them the crunchy crust that children love with much less fat. Sweet potatoes, by the way, may be more nutritious than some ordinary ones, and make very good oven chips.

When making low fat pizza it’s a good idea to cut back on the cheese in the toppings, or perhaps use a low fat cheese. Baked potatoes can have a little chilli or mild salsa in them rather than a lot of cheese, butter, and sour cream. Another tip is to cool soups and gravies and then skim off the fat before reheating to serve.

In some dishes like soups or casseroles you can substitute vegetable stock and fat-free milk for meat stocks and cream and thus reduce the overall fat content. Compensate for the loss of fat flavour with seasonings like curry powder (in moderation), ginger, or thyme.

Once your children are old enough it is a good idea to teach them the basics of cooking and how to achieve a healthy diet. By getting them involved with you in cooking a simple dish like Spaghetti Bolognese they can learn more about healthy ingredients and how to limit unhealthy ones like saturated fats.

Once you give some thought to low fat cooking for children and yourself, you can make a few small changes to your favourite recipes that can make a dramatic difference in the fat content of the food, and a major contribution to your family’s health; so, isn’t it worth it?

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Related Speciality Meal Pages:
~ Low Carb Meals, ~ Low Calorie Meals, ~ Vegetarian Meal Ideas, ~ Gluten Free Meals, ~ Low Fat Cooking

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