Written by Catherine Saxelby
on Friday, 07 September 2012.
Tagged: balanced diet, eating out, guides, healthy cooking, healthy eating, tips, weight loss
Do you have a sweet tooth? Love to check out the desserts on the menu before anything else? Rather than denying yourself (and binging later on), here's how you can indulge a little yet still eat light and not blow everything!
With fruit as the basis of your desserts, you will always find it easy to make them low-fat. Fruit is naturally sweet, refreshes and cleanses the mouth, is full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, and is low in fat. Something fruity works well after a heavy or spicy main such as a curry.
Pineapple, nectarines, apricots and peaches all lend themselves to a super-quick dessert. It's dead simple - or I wouldn't be telling you about it! Prepare the fruit by cutting in half and removing the stone or peeling and cutting a whole pineapple. Sprinkle or coat in brown sugar and place under a preheated grill for 3-5 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Add a little ground nutmeg or fresh grated ginger before grilling if you fancy. It goes golden and yummy with a hint of caramelised sugar. Serve with low-fat ice cream or anything from the list below ....
Swap cream or high fat premium ice cream sides with:
And to finish it off, add a sponge finger biscuit, thin almond wafer or biscotti for flavour with minimum fat.
If you crave a pastry, here are two ways to cut the kilojoules without cutting any of the satisfaction:
1. For a fruit pie, only use one crust - the top or bottom. It not only halves the fat and kilojoules, it also saves you time.
2. Use filo pastry (about 3g fat/100g) instead of high fat pastries, such as puff or shortcrust (about 40g fat/100g), to encase apples or apricots in crisp, paper-thin layers. Before baking lightly brush pastry with canola oil (or use a spray) or orange juice.
Berries make the most sensational end to any meal and have one of the lowest kilojoule counts of all fruit. At around 250 kilojoules (60 Calories) for a 200g punnet, you can afford to have a big helping of blueberries, strawberries, raspberries or blackberries.
And when they are out of season, simply buy them frozen from your supermarket.
As a general guide, when you're eating out, follow these tips for dessert:
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