How to make Food Exchanges for Infinite Variety
Written by Yasar Shahzad Saturday, 03 July 2010 15:59
How to make Food Exchanges for Infinite Variety
Some diet programs outline exactly what you have to eat every day for every meal. For example, you might be given 30 days’ worth of menus and be expected to eat a specific food at meal 3 of day 27 of your diet and so on. For long-term success in sticking with your program, it’s much smarter to customize your menus to suit your own personal tastes and food preferences, as long as you follow the overall template.
For making substitutions, refer to the chart pictures, “Nutritional values quick reference chart pictures,” which can be downloaded by clicking here. You are by no means limited to this list, but it will give you some good ideas. I also recommend that you pick up a copy of Corinne Netzer’s “Complete Book of Food Counts.” This is best calorie counter book available. It lists the calories, protein, fat, and carbohydrate values for over 12,000 foods.
The sample menus in this program are just examples. You should exchange foods for variety and to avoid boredom. The exchange should be approximately the same number of calories. When exchanging foods, you should refer to the exchange categories and swap the original food with a new food from the same category. Carbohydrates should be exchanged for carbohydrates and proteins for proteins. You shouldn’t exchange carbohydrates for protein or vice versa. This will keep your meal ratios in balance.
For example, if you want to exchange oatmeal for something else, then you should look on the complex carbohydrate list. You could swap it for any other complex carbohydrate such as wheat toast, buckwheat pancakes, cream of wheat, shredded wheat or any other food from the complex carbohydrate category. The possible variety is almost endless.
Spicing and flavoring your food
The sample meals that were listed earlier in this section are plain, simple and do not involve any fancy recipes. That might make you wonder, “Am I supposed to just eat this stuff plain?” The answer is no – you can spice up and flavor your food as much as you want. However, eating basic, natural foods is part of the learning process in the beginning. Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals of combining single foods together in the right ratios and quantities, then you can move on to more fancier, more complicated multi-ingredient recipes.
Feel free to “spice up” and season your food to make it more palatable. You can add any low or non-caloric condiments and sauces such as butter flavor sprinkles, light dressings, low calorie marinades, salsa, cinnamon, or artificial sweeteners (Stevia, Equal, or Sweet N Low). You can also use a wide variety of herbs, spices and seasonings such as pepper, garlic powder, oregano, parsley, sage, thyme, dill, ginger, chopped onion, paprika, Mrs. Dash, and any no-sodium seasoning mix. None of these items will alter the percentages or your caloric intake significantly.
