Hungry for Comfort :: Food and Nutrition

Hungry for Comfort

We all love comfort foods; those flavours that can take us back to simpler times when stress was something that only happened to others. Comfort food cravings are hard to resist, especially after working through a hard day or making it through a difficult situation.

Many of your favourite comfort goodies also use up half a day's calorie allowance, clog up your arteries, and make you feel full of regret after you've licked the plate clean.

Thankfully it doesn't have to be that way. A number of comfort foods-with a little tweaking-can actually be good (wait, make that great) for you. Here's how:

If you're craving: milk chocolate
Reach for: dark chocolate (at least 60 percent cocoa)
Payoff: Give into the lure of the dark side; it contains considerable less sugar, plus much more antioxidant polyphenols and those "feel good" compounds tryptophan and theobromine.
If you're craving: PB&J sandwich
Reach for: PB&AB sandwich
Payoff: Made of just apples, apple butter is just as sweet as most jams but contains considerably less sugar.
If you're craving: chocolate cake
Reach for: angel food cake
Payoff: A hunk of cake can be a fat and calorie bomb. Its lighter angel food cousin forks over considerably fewer of these troublemakers.
If you're craving: ice-cream
Reach for: low-fat frozen yogurt
Payoff: Cream is in the name for good reason. Reduced-fat frozen yogurt delivers the same icy treat minus all the excess calories and saturated fat. A bonus is plenty of beneficial probiotic bacteria in your bowl.
If you're craving: French fries
Reach for: sweet potato fries
Payoff: Sweet potatoes enjoy a lower glycemic index that won't send blood sugar on a roller coaster ride. Plus, they' full of the good-for-you antioxidant beta-carotene.

Source: alive #January 09 Newsletter

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