Healthy whole food recipe tips: By making a few simple changes, you can transform any recipe into a delicious, healthy option – even comfort food! Nicole deVries, whole foods chef and writer of popular recipe blog www.DeliciousWisdom.com, shows you how.

1. Healthy Recipe Tips: Make it healthy by making it colourful

What colour do you find most often on a nutritionally deficient plate of food? It varies, but usually ...beige. Unfortunately, if your meal is primarily composed of brown and white foods like meat and refined grain bread, aesthetic appeal and vitamin content are both lacking.

How to fix the problem? Simply put, pretty equals healthy. Red, yellow, green, orange, and purple foods (unless we’re talking about marshmallow-filled cereal or anything else made with artificial colours) are good for you in so many ways. Add vegetables of every colour to your recipes, whether they’re listed in the ingredients or not. Do it for colour and composition, do it for taste and texture, and you’ll accidentally get it done for your body.

2. Healthy Recipe Tips: Keep the fat, but make beneficial choices

‘Fat-free’ is so 1993. And if the rising obesity rates through the fat-free craze didn’t convince you that fat is not the problem, just think of what it does for the flavour of the food. Fat is a good thing.

We need fat, but we don’t need harmful trans fat and excess cholesterol. When assembling recipe ingredients, switch over to natural, non animal-fat sources like nuts, canola oil, olive oil and flaxseed oil whenever possible. Grind up cashews and stir them into your vodka sauce instead of using cream, sauté vegetables and make your garlic bread with olive oil instead of butter to reduce cholesterol intake, or use flax oil in your salad dressing for a shot of omega-3’s (but don’t cook with it because the heat renders the omega-3’s useless!). When the recipe calls for shortening, cream, or butter, make sure you’ve got a variety of healthier fat options on hand and then get creative.

As far as cheese goes, if you remove it from a recipe (or use a low-fat substitute, like tofu and fresh seasonings), remember to add in fat in some healthier form. Or simply pick a cheese with strong flavor, like parmesan or gorgonzola, and use less of it.

3. Healthy Recipe Tips: Keep the carbohydrates, but choose whole versions

‘Carb-free’, on the other hand, is so 2001. Carbohydrates have sustained human populations on every continent for thousands of years and there’s really no reason to cut them out now. There are plenty of reasons, however, to stop consuming refined grains that have been stripped of their fibre and beneficial nutrients.

The stripping of nutrients from our food supply is a relatively new phenomenon, and going back to the original, whole version of a carbohydrate is a fabulous way to improve your recipes. Take the bread, pasta or white rice element within the ingredients and swap it out for either a whole grain version (e.g. whole wheat pasta) or, better yet, an actual whole grain. Instead of serving bread with a meal, cook up a whole grain like millet and toss it with fresh herbs and lots of garlic. Use whole wheat flour in almost any recipe instead of the refined version. To keep a light texture in specific foods like baked goods, begin with a 50/50 mix of refined and whole grain flour.

Keep a whole grain option accessible at all times by making a big pot of brown rice and using it in multiple meals over a few days. Have quinoa for breakfast instead of refined grain cereals. Tip: For a whole grain breakfast in literally no time flat, try soaking rolled oats in milk or water overnight with a little cinnamon and some raisins instead of cooking them. Mix with nuts, seeds or plain yogurt and they’re ready to eat in the morning.

4. Healthy Recipe Tips: Keep the sweetener, but use something natural

Refined sugar is everyone’s favorite type of carbohydrate, but brings some of the worst dietary contributions: naked calories with all nutrients removed, huge spikes in blood sugar, and dramatic energy crashes. Because it contains no minerals, fiber, etc., refined sugar actually depletes the body of nutrients while being metabolised.

The best sweeteners are those which contain some beneficial minerals, have very little effect on blood sugar or cause just a gentle rise and fall. Stevia, an incredibly sweet natural herb that can be found in powdered or liquid form, has no calories and practically no effect on blood sugar. Agave nectar is also very easy on blood sugar, has a mild sweet taste, and pours with the consistency of honey. Other unrefined sweeteners with intact nutritional value include honey and natural maple syrup, though these should be used with care because they do cause blood sugar to spike.

Using natural sweeteners in recipes is both an art and a science. Because many natural sweeteners contain significantly more liquid than commonly used granulated sugar, you must reduce the liquid in other areas of the recipe when substituting. The exact amounts will vary by recipe, but try substituting in an equal amount of natural sweetener for refined sugar. Elsewhere in the recipe, reduce liquid by about 1/2 of the amount of sweetener. An example: 1 cup of sugar could be replaced with 1 cup of agave nectar, as long as the milk (water, broth, juice, etc.) used elsewhere in the recipe is reduced by ½ cup.

5. Healthy Recipe Tips: Convert every canned or jarred ingredient to something whole or fresh

Begin by choosing fresh vegetables over canned or frozen ones whenever available and, ideally, in season. Recipes that call for frozen spinach always taste better with the fresh version and, believe it or not, the act of defrosting takes about the same amount of time as rinsing and steaming. If a recipe calls for canned asparagus and the fresh version is not in season, consider using a different vegetable. Let your local market guide you.

Does the recipe call for soup mix? Ketchup? Ask yourself what the manufactured ingredient is bringing to the recipe and substitute in a whole version. Soup mix can be replaced with veggies, fresh or dried herbs and a little sea salt. Instead of ketchup, throw in some tomato paste and, if the sweetness is important, a dash of agave nectar or honey. Replace cream soups with fresh versions of most important ingredients in the soup: the vegetable, something creamy like organic milk or silken tofu, and your favourite spices or some sea salt and black pepper. Avoid unnecessary corn syrup by dressing your salad in a home-made mixture of vinegar, healthy oil, sea salt and fresh herbs instead a bottled version. And always choose organic cheese over ‘cheese food.’

Nicole deVries is a natural foods chef and certified Holistic Health Counselor. She teaches people how to realistically and painlessly get healthy food into their diet through articles, lectures, and her daily recipe blog. For more tips, healthy versions of recipes, and a weekly shopping list, go to Nicole’s whole food blog at www.DeliciousWisdom.com.