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Dr. Tremaine Afetorgbor

Source: Reach Media / Radio One Digital

While everyone is preparing their Thanksgiving Dinner for the family, you want to be careful about what you put on your plate. You also need to be careful about what you put in your dishes, even though they can help make your foods tasty, Dr. Tremaine Afetorgbor, also known as Dr. Flava stops by the Get Up Church to teach us how to make healthy substitutions during Thanksgiving. What are substitutes for butter? How much salt is too much? Learn from Dr. Flava.

 

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ERICA: What are some ways we can lower the sodium we use in our Thanksgiving dinner?

Dr. FLAVA: So I’m going to help you to shift your mindset just a little bit and hopefully you can implement some of these strategies. So when we’re purchasing our vegetables make sure we’re choosing fresh or frozen veggies which typically have little to no salt added. If you opt for canned veggies you want to rinse them off and I know we are using a lot of smoked meat. They are very salty. You can also work those off too because we want the flavor and less salt. Then focus on herbs and spices and not so much of the seasoning salt. They have a lot of salt usually about 250 to 350 milligrams and Erica simple way to determine how much salt is in your food on your packaged foods is look at the Percent Daily Value. It should be less than 10% and that’s a simple way to guide you through this holiday season.

ERICA: Many people like gravy, can you give some tips on how to make your gravy just a little bit healthier?

DR. FLAVA: Absolutely. So one of my favorite hacks is you’re going to use the meat drippings. Okay, so when you’re cooking it and all that wonderful juice, pour it all, add a little bit more water to the pan, scrape it all off, limbed up some onions and bell peppers, a little bit of garlic and you’re going to cook that down. And that’s going to help to reduce the amount of flour that you needing to add or creams and that could also be the culprit of the bloating and the upset stomach that some people may be experiencing when they’re eating certain foods. Use a smaller plate and eat slower to savor those flavors because a lot of times we think about just over eating but if you’re having to adjust your pants you’re having to you know have eat palms or something like that, you could have some food sensitivity. So just be mindful and think about eating more of those proteins. During the holiday season. You have a really big family so I’m sure everyone’s bringing all their favorite foods. Well focus on the proteins and eating lots of vegetables. And if you are I know you guys want to get on me if you are going to eat the Mac and Cheese and Potato Salad just try a tablespoon of each of those items. So you can save some room for that dessert.

GRIFF: Is this actually a good substitution for butter or no?

DR. FLAVA: Well you can’t. You don’t have you can use avocado oil. I love it because it really doesn’t have that much flavor. You could cut the butter in half but what I do GRIFF is I will cook with a healthier fat and then maybe a add like a tablespoon of butter just to give that extra flavor. Because butter is dairy and so dairy is linked to bloating and an upset stomach. So you can cut those recipes in half and trust me it will taste delicious. A lot of the vegan recipes that’s what they use and it’s the fat that’s in there that’s giving it that flavor as well.

 

 

 

Dr. Tremaine Afetorgbor Explains How To Make Healthy Substitutions During Thanksgiving  was originally published on getuperica.com