By Nicole St. Louis, Senior Nutrition & Health Major, Sargent College 

As Thanksgiving approaches, we are all getting ready for what is sure to be a great food coma on Thursday evening. If you are looking to switch things up in your go-to recipes, recipe modification is a great, simple way to get some health benefits in. While it is not an exact science (it may take multiple tries and tracking on your part to get it down), it can be a very fun way to experiment in the kitchen and get great nutrition benefits with it.

While recipe modification obviously varies by recipe type, there are three major components of a recipe that can be changed without throwing off the flavor profile of the dish completely:

• Product substitution- Example: can a whole grain be switched in for a refined grain?
• More filling power- if possible, the more fruits or vegetables you can add instead of fatty creams or butters to make the dish more filling and satisfying, the better!
• Decrease elective calorie count- this can be done by using more heart healthy oils and less added sugar.

Let’s take an example…for breakfast, popular holiday items may include breads and muffins. Those are generally made with flour, sugar, and butters/fats. For the flour, we can sub in a whole wheat flour or a white whole wheat flour to make it more nutritious. For the sugar, we can decrease the added sugar and add more fruit, like applesauce! This can be done with desserts, too. (Note, for sugar, it is best to go no less than ½ of the original sugar content, or risk completely altering the flavor and texture of the recipe). To make the butters healthier, you can sub in a vegetable or canola oil, which are more heart healthy than butter.

While it is obviously not necessary to modify every single recipe you have (some foods like desserts might not taste the same with too many healthy substitutions), it is a good way to include some additional health benefits in your diet throughout the day, and increase mindfulness of what you’re eating. Have fun testing recipes out, and have a great holiday!