What foods that are good for us can satisfy us like foods that are bad for us?

[specialmom]

LOL, I obsess over food when I'm wanting to lose weight.  I talk about it, read cookbooks, plot my meals, etc.  But this question always comes to mind for me.  What kinds of things CAN we substitute for the things we want but shouldn't eat?  Ideas?  Share your thoughts and tips!!

[specialmom]

Oh, and I started a thread in healthy cooking on pumpkin.  Come share!  https://www.medhelp.org/posts/Healthy-Cooking/Pumpkin-for-healthy-eating/show/3038565

[specialmom]

I do love avocado!

I found this 1 g of sugar peanut butter that tastes great to me.  I eat that with celery or on toast and it is pretty satisfying.  

Anniebrooke, I'm going to have to look up what a filbert is!  I'm completely in the dark.  I like nuts but I find I have to eat a whole lot to feel like I've had a snack.  Then I've had too much fat!  

Sometimes when I am hungry for a sweet, I have a bowl of special K cereal.  Not sure why that makes me feel satisfied but it's pretty tasty.  The box says it's good for me.  I choose to believe. What do you guys think.

And I do like an egg, hard boiled.  Fried with pam (not butter or anything) on a piece of sourdough bread.

Low fat strawberry yogurt with some sliced bananas and some protein granola on top is like a delicious desert to me.  

[specialmom]

dessert

[Barb135]

A filbert is the same thing as a hazelnut or so I'm told by our friends who own a hazelnut farm... I love them, too, but we don't have them here at a reasonable price.  We grow pecans here if we can beat the crows to them... :-)  Otherwise, we pay premium prices for those, as well.  lol

I love Special K cereal and used to eat it all the time.  Others may disagree with me, but looking at the label online (http://smartlabel.kelloggs.com/Product/Index/00038000016615), I don't really think it's all that healthy as it's pretty empty of nutrients, even though it's low calorie.  When one eats it, they're getting most of the nutrients from the milk and a good share of the satisfaction is coming from the carbs, including any additional sugar they might add to it and of course, *I* got a lot of satisfaction from the crunch.   That said, it's probably not doing a lot of damage to your diet, either if that online smart label is correct.

Admittedly, I now eat very few grains of any type because they don't agree with my digestion and/or the bacterial make-up of my intestines.  

Eggs fried in butter are one of my favorites and I actually lose weight when I eat things like that.  I do much better eating more of the healthier fats (saturated fats are really not the demons they've been made out to be) and eliminate the grains, dairy and sugar.  Butter is one of the few dairy products I use.   Adding fats to my meals helps fill me up faster and I don't get hungry between meals so I'm not constantly looking for a snack.  

Nice juicy strawberries are one of my favorite desserts...

[Barb135]

I do well adding a quarter to half an avocado/day to my diet, however it fits in.  Sometimes, I just mash it and spread it on toast; sometimes I add it burger instead of mayo, only I use gluten-free bread/bun, then other times, I'll just slice it and eat it with a little salt and pepper or even put it in my smoothie with a little plain cocoa, frozen banana, fresh ground ginger and almond milk.  The fat in avocado helps satisfy me so I don't get hungry between meals.  Olive and coconuts oils also help with keeping me fuller and helping prevent snacking and over-eating.

If you use spices like ginger, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, etc, you'll find that you don't need as much sugar.  I also use raw honey in place of sugar.  Yes, it's sweet, but it doesn't take nearly as much to satisfy.  Once you get used to not eating a lot of sugar, fruit tastes a lot sweeter and is more satisfying to eat; even some veggies start tasting sweet.    

If I simply have to have a sweetener on something, I do use stevia, but very seldom.  I prefer coconut sugar, but that has to be used sparingly as it does have calories but doesn't seem to take as much as regular sugar.

Last, but not least, I find that I'm better off eating a little bit of a "forbidden" food than I am to totally deprive myself because eventually I'm going to give in and once I feel deprived the chances of binging are much greater than if I allow myself to have a small piece on a regular basis.  Take chocolate, for instance - if I allow myself a small piece (couple of bites) on a regular basis, I know it will be there and it's okay to eat it so I don't get desperate for it.  If I tell myself I "can't" have it, it seems that I want it all the more and the longer I deprive myself, the more I want it and the more I'll eat when I finally give in.  I allow myself some sort of "treat" every day, but my treats now consist of fruit way more often than other things, unless I crave chips...

[Paxiled]

One place to look is in traditional Japanese and other Asian cuisines.  They use sweeteners that break down much more slowly than sugar, such as brown rice syrup, or they skip the sweetener altogether and just use sweet rice (a very starchy, sticky short grain rice) such as in mochi.  To the western taste, this takes some getting used to -- it tastes okay, but the lack of sweetness is most enjoyed by those who have quit eating sweet foods and have altered their taste buds.  I managed a health food store for 12 years that was owned by a woman who followed the macrobiotic diet, which is basically derived from a traditional Japanese diet.  What they found sweet I found tasteless at first, and I'm not going to say it does the trick for me, but I met a lot of people who ate this way and were very happy and almost uniformly quite thin and very high energy.  Nuts are great, but they do need to be eaten in moderation.  You can also get strong tastes by eating healthy foods that are highly spiced instead of heavily fat-added or sugar-added.  Something that actually tastes really good are tamari roasted almonds -- tamari is a traditional soy sauce that is wheat free -- traditional soy sauce is also pretty good tasting, it's brewed like alcohol, not the sugar-laden stuff that passes for soy sauce in the US.  You can also eat things sweetened with stevia, which is a very sweet plant.  Not because of sugar in it.  An acquired taste.  So you can make pretty much anything into a great tasting snack no matter what it is, there's even nori seaweed that is spiced and makes a great snack.  It's just a matter of getting used to it.  Sugar and fat are very satisfying in a sensual way that these won't be for most Americans, but they do taste good for those who are willing to make the change.

[AnnieBrooke]

I do well with walnuts and filberts. They are chewy, full of protein, and what fats they have are OK fats, which helps me reduce cravings for bad stuff. Fresh filberts are available here, since they are grown in Oregon, when they are really fresh (like, you go to the filbert farm and buy a sack) they taste almost like fresh carrots, very delicious.