Our Cooking and Baking Fat and Calorie Saving guides are just what every busy consumer needs today. They provide a quick list so people can make simple substitutions every day to lower fat, sugar and calories with ingredients they are probably already using. Best of all they are updated and now in color! These have been one of the most popular creations of our website for all times.

They also show which items do and don’t make a huge calorie savings. Plus they show that if you make little changes every day you could maybe lose up to 54 pounds per year! You will also lower your risk for certain cancers and certainly improve your vascular health by using less refined fat and animal fat.

Here is what we learned:

• When it comes to meat and protein – lower fat really saves calories. By switching from regular ground beef to virtually fat-free ground turkey breast without skin you can save 16 grams of fat per 3 ounce serving and that can add up to a calorie savings of over 13,000 if you make this switch twice a week for a year. We do have great tips for working with ground turkey here.  A half cup of fat-free ricotta saves 16 grams of fat and 14,000 calories per year if you make that switch twice per week (or enough calories to lose about 4 pounds!)
• When it comes to dairy products – lower fat saves calories, but watching sugar is important, too.
• When it comes to cookies and brownies and other bakery products, fat doesn’t matter that much? Why? Because it is replaced with flour and sugar – both are equally calorie dense. In this instance, it is size that matters. We like to use the hand as a guide. If you are buying a baked good that is the size of your hand or larger, you are probably going to consume 500+ calories. But keep it the size of a finger and you can reduce it to around 100-150. Think “small biscotti” and you can usually imbibe without too much damage.

Get the Baking and Fat Saver Guides here. Look for Ingredient Substitution Guides.

Do you have a favorite substitute? Leave it in the comments below. Feel free to use our photos and articles with a link.

Do you do cooking demonstrations? If so did you know if you purchase Cooking Demo II you now get Cooking Demo I and Cooking Demo II in one big bound book plus a free MyPyramid Cooking Demo download?  PLUS ask our chef unlimited questions – we want to help you!! MyPyramid Cooking Demo has great fast recipes for people in a hurry while Cooking Demo I and Cooking Demo II (now combined in one big book with CDs) has our best recipes and will make any cook into a spectacular healthy chef with its carefully designed presentations. We know everyone is on a budget and we want them to succeed and have all of our recipes.