Diet Recipes – My Pet Peeve
I got a book at the library yesterday, The Ultimate Low Fat Baking Cookbook. This is one of those huge, glossy photo filled, coffee table type books, so I start flipping through it, and the first thing I noticed was the photos. They had been taken at close up to make it appear the cakes and slices of pie were normal sized, but upon closer examination I could quickly see that was not the case. These were Barbie doll sized portions! Every recipe made about the equivalent of a one-layer round, and each served eight. You do the math. Divide that cake in half, then again into quarters, and finally into eighths and you’ve got some dinky portions. So, naturally the calorie count, fat content, carb content, and the sodium are low.
That’s why I’ve usually shunned these cookbooks. Yes, they do make some substitutions to bring down the overall fat content in the recipe, but let’s be realistic. When’s the last time you made a batch of cookies that served 18?
Another cookbook I have which doesn’t tout itself as being anything but Light & Healthy is called Six Ingredients or Less, but I laughed myself silly when I saw the recipes. For example: Strawberry Pie. Take 1 9-inch baked pie shell, 1 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons cornstarch, 3 tablespoons strawberry jello (powder) – well duh, and 3 cups fresh whole strawberries. Serves 8. Yeah, right. Three cups of berries? Serves 8? Let’s see, each person gets, about 1/3 cup of strawberries (about four big berries), a smear of jello and a crusty bit? Pleeze. No topping either. ;-(
This recipe claims a calorie count of 284 per serving, so times 8 that little bit-o-pie costs 2,272 calories! Seems it might have made more sense to just eat a bowlful of berries, as a whole cup of raw berries has only 46 calories, even adding some whipped cream sweetened with splenda wouldn’t add many calories.
Here’s another: Ground Turkey Sandwich (sounds gross), but it’s touted as “great for kids.” It calls for 3/4 pound ground lean turkey, 1 cup finely chopped onion, 1 1/2 cups of catsup (vegetable?), 2 tablespoons white vinegar, 2 teaspoons sugar (why sugar, the catsup has enough), and 2 teaspoons dry mustard. Basically except for the spicings and flavorings this recipe has 3/4 pound ground turky and 1 cup of chopped onions and it serves? Six! That’s 1/8th of a pound of meat, and 1/16th cup of onions per person. Wouldn’t want those little tykes to get overfull, now would we? No wonder they fill up on chips.
