Talkin’ Turkey : With Few Revisions, You Can Zap Fat Out of Thanksgiving Dinner

Although you probably looking forward to spending time with friends and family on Thanksgiving Day, you may have mixed emotions about all the food. You have reason to be concerned, says Lisa Gibson, M.S., R.D., a nutrition consultant based in Irvine, who teaches weight control classes.

“The average turkey dinner is high in fat,” she says. A few hors d’oeuvres, turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole and pie amounts to a whopping 80 grams of fat. (Experts say men should eat no more than 50 to 60 grams of fat per day and women no more than 24 to 40).

This doesn’t mean, though, that you can’t have your favorite Thanksgiving dinner and eat it, too.

“By making a few changes, you can enjoy a tasty meal with all the trimmings,” says Cindy Iftner, M.S., R.D., a Corona del Mar-based consulting dietitian who is on the board of the American Heart Assn. of Orange County.

Having a healthy Thanksgiving supper doesn’t require eating tofu turkey or bean sprout stuffing. All it takes is a few simple changes in your recipes. The revisions make little difference in taste, but a giant difference in fat content.

The following tips will help you serve a healthy, tasty turkey dinner you’ll be proud to put on the table:

* Whet the appetite with low-fat snacks.

Instead of plunking down high-fat, high-sodium potato chips on the coffee table this year before dinner, serve raw vegetables. They’re high in fiber and nutrients and contain no fat. Complement them with your favorite dips. Just replace the sour cream or cream cheese they call for with nonfat yogurt or cottage cheese. Or make your own dips, adding lots of herbs and spices like black pepper, fresh parsley, thyme, chervil, garlic, basil and oregano.

The American Heart Assn. has a recipe for making your own low-fat cream cheese. Mix one cup dry-curd low-fat cottage cheese with one tablespoon of margarine or butter and two teaspoons of nonfat milk. Blend this and use like cream cheese. One tablespoon has one gram of fat.

If you want to delight friends and family, try Gibson’s low-fat version of the popular spinach dip. Mix one package frozen, thawed and well-drained spinach with a cup of nonfat sour cream, one-third of a cup of reduced calorie mayonnaise, two to three tablespoons of onion soup mix, a dash of Tabasco sauce, a teaspoon of lemon juice and pepper to taste. Mix well and chill. Serve in hollowed-out sheepherder’s bread with bread cubes and fresh vegetables. One tablespoon of this delicious dip has just half a gram of fat, compared to its high-fat counterpart, which contains about eight grams per tablespoon.

* Go easy on the alcohol.

“Although beer, wine and mixed drinks have no fat, they are extremely high in calories and offer no nutritional benefits,” says Iftner.

Because of this, in mixed drinks use alcohol sparingly; offer wine spritzers instead of straight wine and serve light beer. Or you could even try drinks without the alcohol. For instance, highly spiced tomato juice makes a good alcohol-free bloody Mary and a fruit juice-club soda combo is another good “cocktail.” Other good beverage choices include sparkling water, herbal tea and soda water with lime or lemon.

* Don’t serve turkey skin.

“Most of the fat in poultry is in the skin,” says Gibson. Without the skin, white turkey is one of the leanest meats there is. With this in mind, trim off the skin before you serve the turkey, or trim the skin from your serving. Also be aware that dark meat contains twice the fat of white meat. Three and a half ounces of dark meat has 7.2 grams of fat, while the same amount of white meat has just 3.2 grams.

* Add fat sparingly.

“The rule of thumb to taste food before adding salt should also be applied to fat,” says Gibson. Before adding extra fat such as butter to potatoes, taste the food to see if it really needs it. You may find that it doesn’t.

“Instead of throwing two or three tablespoons of butter into your mashed potatoes, just add milk,” says Iftner. “It tastes just about the same and the fat content is much lower.” If you want a butter flavor, Gibson suggests using a powdered butter seasoning.

“Even though a recipe calls for sauteing ingredients in oil, you don’t have to follow it verbatim,” says Iftner. “Saute in water or wine, instead.”

* Use defatted stock.

Baste your bird, moisten your stuffing and make gravy with defatted stock, which is still full of flavor, just minus the fat. Buy canned defatted stock, or defat it yourself. Simply chill the stock in the refrigerator and skim off the fat that collects on top.

If you make gravy with pan drippings, it’s also possible to defat that as well. “Remove the drippings and place them in a container; then wait a little while until the fat rises and skim it off of the top,” says Gibson. “Every tablespoon of fat you remove reduces the fat content by 12 grams.”

* Unsweeten the sweet potatoes.

Instead of dishing up sweet potato casserole piled high with marshmallows, try a more healthy alternative, such as Gibson’s sweet potato and apple casserole.

Peel and slice two fresh sweet potatoes, one-quarter- to one-half-inch thick. Place in large skillet with one cup orange juice, one tablespoon of brown sugar, two teaspoons of orange peel and three-quarters of a teaspoon cinnamon. Bring to boil and cook covered for 20 minutes; then add two peeled and sliced apples, an additional three-quarters of a teaspoon cinnamon and cook another 10 to 15 minutes, adding more orange juice if necessary.

“A half-cup serving of this dish contains just one gram of fat, and the sweet potatoes are a good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin C and fiber,” says Gibson.

* Make heart-healthy stuffing.

“Don’t cook stuffing in the turkey cavity, because that makes it very fattening,” says Gibson. For a low-fat stuffing with a lot of pizazz, try the following: Peel and dice two sweet potatoes and cook them in boiling water until just tender. Then heat two tablespoons of canola oil in a skillet and add one cup chopped onion, two-thirds of a cup of chopped celery and saute five minutes. Combine three cups herb seasoned stuffing mix, vegetables, sweet potatoes, one cup diced red apple, half a teaspoon of sage and two cups low-salt chicken broth. Spray casserole dish with cooking oil, put in stuffing mixture and bake at 375 degrees covered for 30 minutes and uncovered for 15 minutes, until top browns. This has about two grams of fat per serving.

* Serve slimming side dishes. A good way to complement rich dinner fare is to make vegetable side dishes without fat. Instead of serving vegetables laden in cream sauce or butter, serve them topped with tasty herbs and spices.

* Save room for dessert.

“If the rest of your meal is heart-healthy, splurging on your favorite Thanksgiving treat is OK,” says Iftner. “Just keep it to one serving.” The average piece of pumpkin pie has 13 grams of fat, and apple pie 12 grams.

It’s also possible to make your favorite desserts much lower in fat. For pumpkin pie, use two egg whites for every egg and evaporated skim milk, says Iftner. Instead of a traditional crust, put the filling in a Graham cracker crust made with two tablespoons of liquid margarine. Top it all with fat-free whipped cream, which is made by whipping well-chilled nonfat milk with a high-speed mixer. Add a little sugar or honey to taste. A piece runs about three grams a serving.

Revise apple pie by sweetening with apple juice concentrate in place of sugar and making a crisp topping, instead of crust. Top with nonfat or low-fat yogurt. This also has about three grams of fat per serving.

When baking other items, keep in mind that you can greatly reduce the fat called for in many recipes. “It’s possible to cut the amount of fat in half without affecting the taste,” says Iftner.