By: Roberta Duyff, MS MR FADA

Ready to decrease calories, fat, especially saturated fat, trans fat or sodium … or boost calcium, fiber or other nutrients? You can transform almost any recipe, even Mom’s specialties. A few subtle modifications may improve their nutrition content without much flavor change. Experiment more dramatically by adding more fruits, vegetables or whole grains to recipes!

Chefs and test-kitchen experts change recipes all the time. There’s nothing sacred about most recipes (except perhaps Mom’s). Recipes get altered when new ingredients come on the market, when cooking equipment changes, when consumers want recipe shortcuts, when ingredients are in or out of season or become more or less costly, when consumers shift food preferences and when nutrition and health issues arise.

In your own “test kitchen,” you can modify recipes in several ways: change the ingredients, modify the way the recipes are prepared, cut portion sizes or do all three. Even one or two small recipe changes can net a significant difference in the nutrition content.