Holiday Cooking Minus the Calories

It's that wonderful time of year when many around town are throwing holiday fiestas of every design. Between ugly Christmas sweater parties and classy cocktail gatherings, there's a chance you're heading somewhere chock full o' calories this weeked, next weekend or every night between now and Jan. 1.

Since the freezing cold is not very conducive to working out, I can't think of anything better than offering some tips on how to stay in shape without working out in the bitter cold, desperately trying to run off eggnog and candy cane.

So here comes some healthy cooking advice. Don't be alarmed, I'm not going to try to get to you go vegan, but there are a few recipes that could be adjusted to healthier ingredients in order to save major calories while maintaining taste.

Here are a few that come in handy with holiday baking, when calories seems to shoot through the roof:

Substitutes for

• sugar: Vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon, agave nectar. While it's easy to swap out sugar in exchange for traditional substitutes such as Splenda, Equal or Sweet'n Low, I've always found that these give cookies a pretty fake taste and a weird aftertaste. You can pick up agave, maple syrup, honey and stevia at any of the area grocery stores.
• eggs: flaxseed/water mix (1 tsp flax to 3 tsp water=1 egg), egg whites (2 egg whites=1 egg) or unsweetened applesauce. Obviously I'm a much bigger fan of applesauce, but be warned: applesauce in place of eggs will ruin cookies, turning them into a giant glob on a baking sheet. If you're making cookies, try the egg substitutes available at the big grocery stores. If using egg whites, two egg whites equal one whole egg. I'm going to experiment with hemp instead of flax seed this year, too. For more egg replacers, check out this article. 
• oil: mashed fruit or tofu. I've seen people use bananas and unsweetened applesauce. Use as much applesauce as the oil that the recipe calls for. This is best for cakes, muffins, scones and bread. Mashed banana is better for cookies. If you crave brownies as badly as I do, but want to cut the calories and cholesterol of the eggs, use silken tofu.

• butter: peanut butter, marshmellows, unsweetened applesauce. (OK, the pb might not save calories, but it's delicious.) Can you tell that I use applesauce a lot in baking? It's a miracle ingredient! It doesn't always work perfectly as a butter substitute, so rookie bakers might not want to try this as you attempt to bake cookies, do your hair, pick out an outfit and run out the door to make it to a holiday party on time. There's a chance you'll just end up frustrated and grabbing a bottle of wine to bring to your host. As for the marshmellows, livestrong.com recommends, "For frostings that call for butter or margarine, use marshmallow creme instead. It does not have the fat or cholesterol of butter or margarine and it will give your frosting a thicker consistency."
• milk: rice and low-calorie almond milk are the lowest calorie substitutes, and will offer the most flavor. Avoiding dairy all together immediately improves the health quality of any recipe, as far as I'm concerned, but if you must use dairy milk, use skim.
• all-purpose flour: whole-wheat flour. Use half as much as the original recipe calls for. According to livestrong.com, "Baking with whole grains, rather than all-purpose white flour, can add fiber to your diet, and high-fiber diets have been proven to reduce the risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases."

If you only use one substitute, make it the sugar - and don't use the artificial sweeteners.

According to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, "One worry about artificial sweeteners is that they uncouple sweetness and energy. Until recently, sweet taste meant sugar, and thus energy." The energy comes from the calories. 

"The human brain responds to sweetness with signals to, at first, eat more and then with signals to slow down and stop eating," the researchers say. Leave the sweetness but take away the calories, and your body doesn't complete the second half of that bargain. Translation? You keep going back for more. And more. And more. Add a few glasses of wine and, woops, you'll be back for more. You'll be feeling gross by the morning, if not by the end of the party.

With all the holiday cocktail parties you're probably planning to attend, cutting off that trigger is a terrible idea. I'd say just skip the sweet Christmas cookies all together, but if you're likely to indulge, show up to the parties with cookies that you know aren't loaded with artificial sweeteners or sugar. How do you know? 'Cause you baked them yourself.

If you're concerned that agave nectar will ruin the texture of your cookies (it is liquid), or you're really worried about calories and willing to be your body's calorie monitor, try calorie-free stevia, made from the leaves of a South and Central American shrub.

For more health advice from Danielle Elliot, check out her blog: That Normal Vegan or follow her on twitter: @thatnormalvegan.