In The Kitchen With Dan

Hi, everybody. You're in the kitchen with Dan right here on Cadre. I hope we're having a great day. I'm excited today because I'm going to be talking about healthy replacements for some of our unhealthy options that we have when we're picking things to eat. I love doing this because it's healthy for our body, but I also love it because it really encourages me to get out of my comfort zone and try different things that I normally have not. And some of them that I've tried are really, really good, sometimes better than the originals that we're used to eating.

And so I'll identify those as we roll today. Last night, I made lasagna, and instead of using our typical lasagna noodle, whether it's a boil or an oven ready, those are high in carbohydrates, usually made with white flour. You can do the whole wheat varieties. Those are always more healthy. But what I really, I had not tried this, and I loved it so much. Hearts of palm. Hearts of palm. Normally, you know, looks like this. I don't know. You can buy them in whole pieces like this or sliced. I don't know if you're familiar with hearts of palm.

You normally see these in a lot of salads. Whoa. Oops. Hello? I'm still here. I hope you guys are too. Ah, the tech world. All right, so back to parts. You can buy hearts of palm. You can buy these whole sliced, usually semen salads. These come in sheets, like lasagna, and this was fantastic. I'm gonna open this can and show you. Actually, I'm gonna open both of them now. You want to rinse these off when you are using them as lasagna noodles. This is a heart of pulmonary. Mmm, it's so good. It's got a little bite to it, a little texture.

Absolutely delicious. But when it comes in sheets, use this in place of lasagna noodles. Rinse them, pat them dry. So good. So I encourage you to try those. This is so good. Now, a couple videos ago, I made zucchini noodles. Excuse me for talking with my mouth full. I made zucchini noodles, another great replacement for pasta. A lot of times, the things we love about pasta are what goes on top of the pasta. We love the sauce, and we love the flavors and the cheese and all that stuff. Go ahead with those.

Use some noodle replacements, like hearts of palm zucchini noodles. You can use sliced zucchini, very thin. I'm not going to take another bite because I'm going to keep chewing while I'm talking. But I want to. Alright, so we covered hearts of palm zucchini noodles. When you're making dips or you're using sour cream, replace it with greek yogurt. Fantastic substitution. It's much healthier for you and it's just as tasty. It's a little different, but once you get used to it, it's really tasty. You can flavor it with whatever flavorings you'd like.

Junk food junkie. Hello, spaghetti squash. Spaghetti squash. Spaghetti squash is a great replacement for spaghetti and for noodles. Again, same sauce. Use the spaghetti squash. You want to cut this in half two ways. I like to do it. Turn it over so it's cut size down in a couple pan. In a pan big enough for both. Throw a little water in, leave it in the oven until it gets fork tender. You can stick the fork in and pull it out with ease. And the way you prepare this is you scrape it with the fork until the noodles scrape off.

But I'll be making recipe coming up here soon with spaghetti squash. So it's funny you mentioned that junk food junkie. So I hope you're around when we make spaghetti squash. Spaghetti. It shouldn't be long since I have it right here. All right, so sweet potatoes, that's another great replacement. Sweet potatoes are an excellent source of protein and you can definitely get a better bang for your, for your nutritional buck with sweet potatoes as opposed to white potatoes. Best party carb friendly.

Yes, yes, that's right. So sweet potatoes are great. You want to look for lean proteins. So, you know, I'm going with this, with this physical health, jumping back in the physical health plan. I'm going with, you know, making small changes and piling those on top of each other. So nothing drastic. I'm not doing none of this. I'm not never eating that or that. I'm instead working healthy things that I already know about, that I've already experienced and that have worked for me. And just increasing the amount of those tips and tricks and replacements that I can.

So keeping that in mind, lean cuts of meat, great source of protein. Chicken breast. We're eating a lot of chicken breasts. And I'll show you different ways to prepare those coming up in future videos as well. So one thing that I love to make are plant based sauces. Take out a sheet pan, put your oven at 400, take some olive oil and cover whatever veggies you like. Generally, I do a tomato. I do a couple roma tomatoes, plum tomatoes, half an onion or an onion. And peppers, red peppers, yellow peppers, and I roast those in the oven and then I blend them.

So just a little bit of olive oil, some salt and pepper, roast those up, usually about a half hour. And the veggies are good and pull them out and blend that, and it makes the most delicious sauce. So try getting some vegetable based sauces on top of these veggie replacements, and you've got a fantastic, you know, vegan veggie, healthy meal for yourself and all the people you love. Avocado. Think about avocados when you want a great source of healthy fat. They are fantastic, and I love them so much.

Making guacamole. I was just thinking about this the other night. I've always made guacamole with just the avocado. I just mash it up and then I put in, you know, a little bit of salt and pepper, very little stuff, maybe a little onion. But I see all these, these avocado dips with all this added sour cream and all, you know, it's all this high maintenance stuff. A little squirt of lemon juice to keep it from getting brown. And just mash it up, man. It's great on some of these things that we've been talking about.

It's great on whole whole grain toast. So try to work some avocado into your diet and, you know, go just with it sliced or mash it up and see if you like it that way. And save yourself some time and some money, some energy, and just go for the green. As it is, brown rice is a great option instead of white, if you can. A lot of people just do not like brown rice. I'm one of those people who actually likes it better. I love the way it tastes. I love the texture. So switch some of these up, and like I said before, you might find that you like these options even better than what you've been using all along.

Hummus is a great dip that's made with chickpeas, garbanzo beans, the same thing, and a food processor or blender. And you're adding tahini, which is sesame seed paste, like a peanut butter, but it's made with sesame seeds and a little bit of garlic, a little bit of olive oil, lemon. Very healthy ingredients. Great high, great source of protein. High protein. And much healthier option than a lot of the sour cream based dips. Great for dipping veggies in hummus. It's easy to make, so give it a try.

There's lots of recipes for it online. And again, it's just really simple with the tahini and the chickpeas. A little bit of olive oil, some lemon salt. That's about it. Okay. Frozen grapes, really good, especially in the summer. Throw some grapes in a freezer bag into the freezer they go. And when you're in the mood for something really sweet in a rush, grab and go. It's really good. Mustard and hot sauce. I love hot sauce. And so often just a couple drops of hot sauce, it changes the flavor of the dish so much that you're not missing any butter or any oil.

And it's a really great way for no calorie high flavor. Mustard is another one of those. If you do like mustard, just leave other things off your sandwiches. Try dipping like pretzels or potato chips in mustard. And try different types of mustards. There's so many out there. So junk food junkie has said he's got type two diabetes and he has to definitely watch this stuff. So he's letting us know. Black bean sauce is delicious. Yes, I love black beans. I have not tried a black bean sauce. All right, I'm on it.

So thank you, junk food junkie, for those, those tips, we're definitely going to be talking more. I am a borderline diabetic. I'm just right under, under the limit. And that's one of the main reasons that I am starting to focus on my physical health. There's so many different areas of health and wellness in our life and we want to balance those so that every area of health and wellness is being focused on. And something that I've been neglecting is my physical health. And I've talked about that in the last couple weeks and I am having a blast bringing back all of these healthy tips and tricks that I've used throughout the years.

I always say I have gained, I have lost tons and tons of weight. I know how to lose weight. I'm really good at it. What I don't know how to do is keep that weight off and maintain these healthy habits as a part of my life, not just something I'm doing to lose some weight really quick for a party or a wedding or whatever. So we're in this for the long haul. Thanks junk food junkie for stopping in and your comments. It's always great to see you and leave a comment below. If you're just catching this on a replay, we'd love to hear from you and you can follow for more.

Leave a thumbs up. Leave. Leave some feedback, let us know what you're looking for and we will definitely give you more of that so keep checking back right here on Cadre for all health and wellness related content. Love you guys. Have a great week, and we'll see you later. Bye. I'm going to finish this. Bye.