Heart Healthy Tips for Snacks and Desserts

Balancing Good Nutrition with Good Taste

For a heart-healthy lifestyle, it is important to eat nutritious meals. But what about snacks and desserts? Do you have to give up the tasty treats you love best? Absolutely not! They key is reducing the amount of fat in the snacks and desserts you eat.

If you are one of those people who thought "nutritious" and “delicious” couldn’t mix, you're in for a happy surprise! This booklet has been designed to offer some helpful information about snacks and desserts that we hope will be a blessing to your heart.

Desserts
The perfect ending to a great meal, or even a not-so-great meal, is dessert. For a heart healthy diet, you don't have to forgo the pleasure of sumptuous cake, cookies or pies. Just forgo the calories and choose desserts low in saturated fats and carbohydrates!

Here are few easy choices for low-fat desserts:

• Fruit—fresh, frozen, canned or dried.
• Low-fat yogurt with fruit.
• Angel food cake.
• Low-fat ice cream with no more than 3 grams of fat per half cup.
• Frozen yogurt—fat-free, low-fat, or nonfat.
• Flavored gelatin.
• Sherbets and sorbets.

On special occasions, choose homemade desserts made from margarine with liquid vegetable oil as the first listed ingredient or oils low in saturated fat. Also use fat-free or 1 percent-fat milk, egg whites or egg substitutes. An occasional egg yolk is OK. In choosing store-bought desserts, select those that are listed as low-fat or nonfat. However, it the product is made with hydrogenated oils, it may contain high levels of trans fatty acids. It's best to limit your intake of these kinds of sweets.

Snacks
Between-meal snacks are especially important for growing youngsters, active teens, and pregnant and nursing mothers. It is important to choose foods that are not just pleasure-packed, but loaded with important nutrients as well. The next time you get the munchies, choose snacks from food groups such as fruits and juices, raw vegetables, low-fat cookies, plain (unsalted) popcorn or unsalted pretzels.

You can also try these healthy snack substitutions:

About these recipes:
The amount of fat, calories and cholesterol changes in each recipe depending upon the ingredients and brands to use. We suggest the use of low-fat or no-fat products. These tips and recipes are a guideline for changing cooking and eating habits. Consult your doctor, nutritionist or dietitian to determine your dietary limits.