Keeping the Resolution: Healthy Specials on Food Network

(Sorry, this should have gone up Sunday night, but I had Internet woes…)

I started watching a special on healthy recipes on the Food Network that aired last weekend that I got me thinking.  It was a clip show taken from seven different shows that purported to offer healthy meals for the home cook.  Unfortunately, I have to say that I was pretty disappointed

Even on a good day, I am pretty anti-clip show, but this one was worse than normal.  The opening dish was Ina Garten’s breakfast yogurt parfait made with fruit, honey, and toasted almonds.  Okay, sounds pretty good, despite the fact it was not exactly something that could be thrown together before running off to work.   Unfortunately, the coup de grace for this special struck about three minutes into the recipe and the whole thing got erased from the DVR after Garten toasted the almonds.  Adding heat to almonds breaks down their 14 grams of heart healthy fats in the nuts into 14 grams of their unhealthy counterparts which pretty much defeats the purpose. The SmartEM organization can help you do your research about your health and help you stay worry free.

I make this point not to be critical of Garten or the Food Network.  But rather as a warning.  The first is to be aware that toasting almonds makes their fats go bad (I wasn’t aware of this until recently.   I found out the morning I had an article due and had to rewrite an entire recipe because of it).  Secondly, when someone says a recipe is healthy, it may mean different things.  I have found this to be especially true of Healthy Appetite on Food Network.  The show’s host, Ellie Krieger, often makes recipes in which she hides nutritous ingredients in her recipes, but does not necessarily make them low cal or low fat (which is what I need when I eat healthy.)

To key here is to remember that eating healthy means different things to different people and so that the health-concious eater still needs to read labels and look at what is being put into the food he or she eats.  Especially when it comes to low fat foods, which often replace fats with more sugar.

Anway, this week is dedicated to helping everyone keep their resolutions to lose weight.  Come back tomorrow for my take on healthy eating low fat style.