As the Change4Life website states:
We all know too much fat is bad for us. But we don’t always know where it’s lurking. It seems to be in so many of the things we like, so it’s sometimes difficult to know how to cut down.
Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to go easy on the fat; simple things like comparing food labels, swapping certain foods for others and changes to the way we prepare and cook food.
For example, grilled fish fingers have much less fat than fried fish fingers and trimming the fat off bacon can reduce its fat by about a half.
As a mum I am concerned that my children may sometimes eat too much fat in their diet but on the whole they do pretty well at eating lower fat products and use semi skimmed and not full fat milk.
Here are a few of the ideas Change4Life have for reducing the fat in your kids' diets:
- Limit snack foods that are high in fat such as cakes, biscuits, crisps, pastries and buns.
- Choose low fat spreads, lower fat content products and lean meat. Using skinless chicken or turkey mince can easily reduce fat intake.
- When cooking cut off visible fat, remove skin from poultry, drain off fat after cooking and grill instead of fry.
- Make tasty, healthy food swaps such as oven chips instead of deep fried ones. Use low fat yoghurt instead of ice cream or cream.
- Make supermarket swaps:
| Leave on the shelf | Put in basket |
|---|---|
| Streaky bacon | Back bacon |
| Croissant | Bagel |
| Butter | Lower fat spread |
| Sausages | Vegetarian sausages |
| Doughnut | Currant bun |
| Biscuits | Malt loaf |
| Cream | Reduced fat Greek yogurt |
| Cheese sauce | Tomato or vegetable sauce |
| Ice cream | Lower fat frozen yogurt |
| Full fat milk | Skimmed or semi-skimmed milk |
| Cheddar cheese | Lower fat cottage cheese |
| Burgers | Fish fingers (grill instead of fry) |
| Minced beef | Turkey mince |
Can you think of any other ways to get your children on to a lower fat diet? And of course help yourself get healthier too!
