3 Simple Food Swaps

January 4, 2019 Julia Friedman

Here are 3 simple food swaps that you can use almost daily to fight cravings and get your body into tip top shape

3 Simple Food Swaps

I don't know about you, but if I can cut calories without compromising too much on taste, I'm all about it! I wanted to start off the New Year strong and healthy and one of my fitness/wellness goals is to eat less-processed foods and aim for a lower daily carb intake. I absolutely love food! But with loving food, I almost always have to sacrifice the hard work I put in at the gym. This year, I am really motivated to change my overall lifestyle starting with my fitness routine, and executed by my diet. I recently have started to understand my body and what foods do and do not agree with me. The one thing I literally cannot eat without getting a stomach ache is dairy. So I am taking some time apart from all dairy products to see if it changes the way I feel everyday. So far, it's been about a week, and I haven't gotten an upset stomach so I think it's safe to say it's going well!

I thought I would make the best of the situation and share some very simple food swaps to kickstart your health this year. So far I've tried the following and they are all life changing (and no, I'm not being dramatic).

Cauliflower for Rice, Pizza Crust, and Mashed Potatoes

Trader Joe's makes this food swap extra easy because they sell prepared food with cauliflower instead of gluten, rice, and starchy white potatoes. The cauliflower food trend is very real. I would say the easiest swap is for rice. You can make any rice dish with cauliflower rice and the taste is barely compromised. My favorite is a Cauliflower Fried Rice recipe that is super simple here: Cauliflower Fried Rice. You can either buy the cauliflower already "riced" which is what I do, or you can put the cauliflower you have into food processor and get the same result.

Here are some other cauliflower recipes:

An Apple for Crackers

Sounds weird I know, but the possibilities with an apple are endless. For this substitution, you're going to want to slice an apple along the core in half. Then, you scoop out the core, turn the apple halves skin side up, and slice it as thin as want or as thick as you want. My favorite combinations are peanut butter or almond butter and honey or jam, ricotta and jam (not dairy-free), nut butters with raisins, just cinnamon. I mean you can really do a mix of anything that goes with apples! It's so easy and a filling, fibrous snack.

Zucchini for Pasta

I am a pasta lover, so this swap was painful, but to my surprise it was really good! Just make sure you have a yummy sauce with out without ground beef or turkey, to really make it have texture and flavor. Nowadays, most markets sell zucchini spirals, but if your market doesn't, it takes about five seconds using a spiralizer. This doesn't mean I won't be eating healthy pasta made from lentils or beans too! Here are my favorite healthy pastas:

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Here are some recipes for zucchini pasta:

Those are my 3 simple food swaps, what are yours?