2. Swap Butter/ Mayonnaise for Avocado
Mayo. Swap mayo for mashed avocado on sandwiches. Swap mayo for mashed avocado on sandwiches and save yourself a ton of calories. While a typical two-tablespoon serving of mayonnaise packs in a whopping 206 calories and 24gr of fat, half a mashed avocado only has 114 calories and less than half the fat of mayonnaise.
Butter. A slightly more radical, but not so new, swap. European sailors en route to the New World did it. Swap avocado for butter – in baking. Substitute puréed avocado for butter in baking and you wont know the difference. Really!
In fact, you might just get better results. Switching puréed avocado will color the dough slightly green, but will not affect taste, will reduce fat and calorie content by almost 80% and actually result in baked goods that are softer and less likely to crumble than if you were to use ordinary butter.
Not only does this swap reduce calories and total fat content, but it reduces the amount of unhealthy (saturated) fat, and increases the levels of healthy (unsaturated) fats, vitamins and minerals. Avocados are especially rich in folate, potassium, vitamin B, vitamin E, vitamin K and fiber, so better for your health; but as research shows also better for your belly.
Avocado is rich in mono-unsaturated fat (also known as MUFAs), which research suggests can help you fight the belly flab. A study published in the journal “Diabetes Care” showed that eating a diet rich in mono-unsaturated fat can actually help prevent weight gain in your belly area.
Tips to swap butter with avocado:
- 1 cup of avocado equates to about 1 cup of butter.
- To reduce browning (oxidation) of the puréed avocado, add a wee bit of lemon juice.
- If you’re a little wary of using avocados for baking sweet treats, try it when baking savory treats such as muffins, pies and breads.
- Start prudently, swapping, say, half the butter for avocado and increase and experiment from there.
Sorry i am not trying to be a total jerk i am very intrigued by this website i love it, it is very helpful and useful!! But i was just noticing in this specific section there is a couple things that i was thrown off by and maybe i am being knit picky but when you are saying to swap foods for another i would expect the bad food to be first and the good food to be second, for instance the first item swapping oats for sugary cereals to me sounds like i should be swapping oatmeal for cocoa puffs which i do not think is your intention, the paragraph explanation under the header does coincide with your title but it is still a little offsetting, maybe i am the only one that is thinking this way but i feel it’s a little backwards, also i noticed a typo in the very first sentence of this “swapping your regular sugary cereal for rolled outs…. i think should be oats?? I do apologize i may come off as a little over analytical but i do enjoy this site greatly and i am citing this with good intentions.
Hi B, sorry we never got back to you. Just to say thanks for pointing things out! It was helpful, no need to apologize! Your pointers were much appreciated! 🙂
Sweet. I always eat old fashion oats for breakfast. not the artificial kind. I always prefer brown rice than white rice, add mix vegetables, tuna, lemon, little soy sauce, and chile. that stuff is yummy, lol.
how do you eat that stuff