Sarah Schlesinger - 500 Fat Free Recipes. A Complete Guide to Reducing the Fat in Your Diet

Copyright 1994 by Sarah Schlesinger
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. Published in the United States by Villard Books, a
division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in
Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Villard Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schlesinger, Sarah.
500 fat-free recipes: a complete guide to reducing the fat in your diet:
500 recipes from soup to dessert containing one gram of fat or less/Sarah Schlesinger.1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-83435-5
1. Low-fat dietRecipes. Title. II. II.

Title:
Five hundred fat-free recipes.
RM237.7.S35 1994 93-15429
641.5638dc20 v3.1 Diet and health are matters that vary greatly from individual to individual. Be sure to consult your physician about your personal needs before beginning any diet modification program. Consultation with a medical professional is particularly important if you are under medical care for any illness or are taking medication.

E ach of my four cookbooks has been directly inspired by my husbands fight against heart disease and our resulting interest in the health implications of diet and nutrition. In September 1991, after we learned that Sams arterial blockages had returned nine years after bypass surgery, we discovered Dr. Dean Ornishs book Dr.

Ornishs Program for Reversing Heart Disease Without Drugs or Surgery (Random House, 1990). Since that time we have followed Dr. Ornishs reversal and prevention diet with great success. Since the diet requires a dramatic reduction in fat and cholesterol consumption, we embarked on a new and daunting cooking adventure. Within the first week of trying to make a fat-free diet work in the midst of two very busy schedules, we felt totally thwarted. Although we had been eating conservatively for some time, this latest adjustment proved the most difficult to make.

Since we quickly discovered that it remains almost impossible to eat a fat-free meal in a restaurant in America today, we realized that the emphasis on consuming a fat-free diet would have to center on preparing food at home. I soon found myself spending frantic, seemingly endless hours searching through hundreds of cookbooks looking for recipes that met our new fat-free criteria. I found that such recipes were almost nonexistent. As I began developing my own recipes, I concluded that a comprehensive collection of fat-free recipes would be a vital and welcome tool for anyone who is trying to reduce his or her fat consumption for any reason. As we have explored the world of fat-free cooking, we have found that there are limitless ways to enjoy good food without added fat.

500 Fat-Free Recipes is a collection of five hundred delicious ways to cut the fat from your diet. 500 Fat-Free Recipes is a collection of five hundred delicious ways to cut the fat from your diet.

Each recipe contains only 1 gram of fat or less per serving and offers a simple, quick, convenient, and delicious strategy for cooking without added fat or fat-laden ingredients. This book provides a one-stop resource for creating nonfat dishes at home ranging from soup to dessert. The recipes, which contain only the minimal amount of fat naturally found in foods, are also low in cholesterol and sodium and high in nutrients and fiber. Instead of depending on fat for flavor, they imaginatively highlight, maximize, and combine natural flavors. 500 Fat-Free Recipes can help you to reduce fat intake, one of the most important steps to better health. These recipes are not only ideal for individuals on a highly fat-restricted diet, but also for anyone wishing to cut his or her total fat intake to any degree.

In fact, these recipes can allow you to indulge your occasional cravings for higher-fat foods because the absence of fat in these dishes will help to limit your daily fat calories.

While Americans often seem obsessed with eating, we pay surprisingly little attention to which foods we consume in terms of their effect on our bodies. In contemporary American life we too often choose the foods we eat based on convenience and taste rather than on their nutritional content. It becomes more and more apparent that this lack of nutritional focus is a dangerous choice. According to the Surgeon General of the United States, diet plays a role in the diseases that cause 70 percent of the deaths in this country. Nowhere is our failure to acknowledge this potentially fatal connection between the food we eat and our health more full of risk than in the area of fat consumption.

The average American eats 135 pounds of fat a year. As a result we are often overfed but undernourished because so many of the food calories we consume are in the form of fats. This excess fat intake is our number one nutrition hazard. In recent years studies have revealed that those societies around the world that consume diets high in fat have high rates of heart disease and cancer, while those that partake of low-fat diets have significantly lower rates of these diseases. For instance, in a long-term study the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine discovered that the average Chinese consumes 30 percent more calories but 60 percent less fat than the average American. The average Chinese weighs less and has a lower heart disease rate and lower cancer rate than the average American.

In addition to contributing to heart disease and cancer, high consumption of fats has also been linked to diabetes, stroke, and obesity as well as other health problems including acne, skin rashes, allergies, bloating, constipation, dizziness and vertigo, indigestion, and hormonal imbalances leading to menstrual cramps and premenstrual distress. Eating excess fat can lead to impaired blood circulation, which leads to fatigue and can affect normal immune functions, creating increased vulnerability to illness. In view of the growing evidence that our health is seriously compromised by the consumption of too much fat, it is important that we learn to control the amount of fat in our diets. In order to do this we have to become conscious of our current rate of fat consumption and learn the best techniques for reducing our fat intake. Before launching into a program of fat control, it is helpful to understand exactly what fat is and how it functions in our bodies. Fat is found in all living things.

Fat, protein, carbohydrate, vitamins, minerals, and water are the nutritional building blocks of our food supply. Fat is our most concentrated form of food energy since each gram of fat provides us with 9 calories, while protein and carbohydrate provide only 4 calories per gram. A tablespoon of fat contains 120 calories. Most of the reserved energy in the human body is stored in the form of fat. In addition to providing energy, fat helps the body absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. Like other foods, fats can be broken down into basic chemical units.