Easy Low Fat Tofu Recipes
Many people believe that being a vegan or vegetarian means instantly having a healthy lifestyle. While this is often times true, sometimes it can be difficult to weed out the unhealthy tofu recipes from the low fat tofu recipes. Many people just believe that all tofu is created equal and that all tofu is healthy. You might be surprised to learn that both firm tofu and soft tofu can be ridiculously unhealthy. Surprisingly, tofu can even be fried. If you are just frying your tofu, you may be living a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle, but you are not living a healthy vegan or vegetarian lifestyle. It is time to search for a low fat tofu recipe to bring some healthy eating back into your life. There are three pitfalls to a tofu recipe that can make it unhealthy.
The First Unhealthy Pitfall: Cheese
While vegans do not eat cheese, vegetarians do. A low fat tofu recipe will not include cheese. While it is a great source of protein, vitamin D, and calcium, since most cheese is made with whole milk it contains quite a bit of saturated fat. This fat clogs up arteries and can lead to heart disease. One ounce of cheese is the size of an average thumb. That ounce of cheese contains anywhere from seven to nine grams of fat. A solution to this is to not use any tofu recipes that include cheese in them. A lot of times a tofu recipe that includes cheese can be made into a low fat tofu recipe simply by eliminating the cheese. If you cannot live without your cheese (and you are not a vegan), look for non fat or low fat cheese to use instead or use just a sparse amount of regular cheese.
The Second Unhealthy Pitfall: Nuts
Nuts are very popular in vegan and vegetarian tofu recipes. Nuts and seeds are a great source of protein, and the fat that they contain happens to be a healthy, unsaturated fat. Nuts can prevent heart disease. Unfortunately, because of their high fat content (be it “good” fat or not), if you eat too many nuts you are going to gain weight. If you have a tofu recipe that includes nuts, try to switch it to a low fat tofu recipe by either eliminating the nuts or cutting the amount in the recipe. Cut one cup of nuts to half a cup, for example. Or, if the nuts are not essential to the meal, simply do without.
The Third Unhealthy Pitfall: High Fat Recipes
While this seems obvious, it may not be obvious to many people. You cannot have a low fat tofu recipe if it includes ingredients that are high in fat. Many vegetarian recipes have ingredients like oil, butter, and sour cream. These are silent killers because many people do not even think of them as part of the dish. Instead of adding these to your tofu dish, if you want a low fat tofu recipe try limiting the additions to the dish. Do not add margarine, mayonnaise, sour cream, salad dressing, cream cheese, etc. If you absolutely have to add anything, do so in small doses. Use a vegetable broth or wine to sauté food instead of plain oil. Most of all, if you want your tofu dish to be a low fat tofu recipe, limit high fat toppings.
