De-Fatting Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day dinner with turkey and all the fixings is enough to turn the dining room table into a groaning board. For as tasty as it is, this feast is enough to make your arteries groan.

The typical holiday meal is laden with fat from gravies made with meat drippings to mounds of mashed potatoes to Aunt Mabel's double-crusted pies. Studies have shown that fats - particularly trans fatty acids found in partially hydrogenated oil, vegetable shortening and margarine - can clog the arteries and contribute to heart disease. Thanksgiving dinner doesn't have to be this way, though.

Robin Vitetta, M.S., the author of numerous cookbooks and a contributing writer to Cooking Light magazine, says there are ways to de-fat those holiday meals and still keep them delicious. She suggests several strategies: trim the fat, think "substitute" and include a variety of fruits and vegetables.

Trim the fat

One of the worst fat offenders at the table is probably the gravy. Vitetta suggests pouring the meat drippings into a container and refrigerating it. The fat rises to the surface and is easy to peel off, she says. If you don't have the time, then use a paper towel to absorb the fat off the top.

Defatting the meat juices eliminates the fat in the gravy. Two tablespoons of regular gravy made without defatting the drippings contain about 4 grams of fat (comparable to a teaspoon of margarine).

Make your stuffing a little less stuffy by cooking it outside the turkey for two reasons, Vitetta says. First, it's safer that way because of the concern about making sure the inside is cooked sufficiently to kill off salmonella bacterium, which turkeys can harbor. Second, cooking your stuffing, or dressing, outside the turkey avoids all of that extra fat.

If you're baking sweet potatoes, leave out the butter. Try adding a little brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Bake them in a nonstick baking pan.

You can cut a little more fat by eating the turkey but not the turkey skin. A 3-1/2 ounce serving of roast turkey breast with skin has 197 calories and 8.3 grams of fat; without skin, 157 calories and 3.2 grams of fat.

Make a single-crusted pie instead of a double-crusted one. If you're buying those refrigerated pie crusts, Vitetta suggests rolling them thinner and throwing away about an inch of the border. "A lot of fat in pumpkin pie is in the crust, so you will get rid of a lot of fat that way. If you're having pecan pie, which is loaded with fat, you might as well just eat it and take a run later," Vitetta says.

The substitutes

According to Vitetta, there's nothing wrong with cheating in cooking if you are saving calories or cutting out fat and still winding up with taste. Here are some substitutes she suggests:

• Use fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth to moisten your dressing.



• Baste the turkey with fruit or vegetable juices instead of fat.



• Substitute olive oil in place of butter or margarine not only in cooking but also at the table. Olive oil with some rosemary added goes very nicely with breads. (Make those breads whole-grain breads, which are low in fat and high in fiber.)



• Mash potatoes using nonfat sour cream.



• Use cranberry sauce in place of gravy.



• Use fat-free non-dairy creamers or evaporated skim milk as substitutes for cream in baking pies. They don't whip up like heavy cream, but they are better for you and taste great. The non-dairy creamers come in flavors, which can add a little extra boost. If you can't imagine pumpkin pie without a creamy topping, try a fat-free whipped one.

Don't forget vegetables and fruit

Actually, pumpkin pie counts here. "Pumpkin pie is wonderful. It's loaded with beta carotene and vitamin C," Vitetta says.

Pumpkin, carrots and other orange vegetables, such as sweet potatoes, contain beta carotene, which is an orange pigment and powerful antioxidant. Beta carotene is converted in the body to vitamin A. It is present in leafy green vegetables, as well, but the chlorophyll camouflages the orange pigment.

Sweet potatoes, pumpkin, carrots, dried apricots, cantaloupe, winter squash, spinach and collard greens all pack beta-carotene power.

A slice of pumpkin or sweet potato pie can provide the same beta carotene as a carrot. It also can be laden with fat, Vitetta says. You can cut 90 percent of the fat by using evaporated skim milk or a nondairy creamer instead of condensed milk and by using egg substitute instead of eggs.

Vitetta serves up this final bit of advice on holiday cooking: "Don't starve yourself until dinner. Have breakfast so you don't load up at the big meal. Try a little bit of everything, go easy on the seconds, easy on desserts and take a walk after dinner."

This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.

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