Friday, September 25, 2009

Gluten Free Casein Free Lower Calorie Ideas (whew!)

Shannon at Miss J's school told me she was finding it really hard to eat ligher while also accomodating her little boy who is gluten and casein intolerant. I was thinking about it, and skipping gluten and casein actually should make it easy to lose weight -- dairy and carbs are both calorie dense foods, so cutting many of them out of your diet should make it easier to eat fewer calories while still eating a lot of food. Additionally, I find protein, fruits, and vegetables to be the cornerstone of my diet, and those are all good choices for people avoiding caseins and gluten.

I've been experiementing with silken tofu as a replacement for cream, and many of those recipes would work with few to any tweaks. I also recommend Almond Milk as a great substitute for real milk -- it has half the calories of skim milk.

What follows is some of my ideas -- but I'm definitely not an expert, so read labels to make sure these recommendations work.

Breakfasts:
Egg Whites/Egg Substitutes, cooked in the microwave. You can make a fritatta sort of dish by adding chopped up leftover veggies, cherry tomatoes, chopped turkey pepperoni, chopped fat free turkey slices, salsa, etc.
Tofu & Fruit Smoothie
Left over rice with almond milk, cinamon, sugar
Breakfast Polenta
Don't let yourself be limited by traditional breakfast foods, either -- use your leftover meats, veggies, or starches.

Dinners -- chose one from each category

Starter:
broth & vegetable soup (any type, mix it up -- use the spices and/or sauces mentioned below)
Salad (spinach has the most nutritional value of most packaged greens) with homemade vinaigrette or a tofu based ranch dressing
Crudites (cut up raw veggies)

Meat:
Chicken Breast (1 oz/pt)
Fish
Pork Loin (1 oz/pt)
Shrimp (2 oz/pt)
96% lean hamburger meat (4 uncooked oz/3 pt)
chicken sausages (read the package)

Stock up on spice mixes and rubs -- BBQ, Mexican, Provencal, Lemon Pepper, etc. Defrost your meat in the fridge during the day, sprinkle seasoning on while heating your cooking surface, then sautee in a skillet with a bit of oil/spray, on a George Foreman grill, bake in the oven, or broil.

If you have some gluten free cereals (corn flakes??) you could crush them up in a bag and use them for "breading" -- this is great with fish or chicken, baked or sauteed in a pan with minimal oil. (Wet the meat in egg white or almond milk first, then dredge in the crumbs.)

The kid probably doesn't like most sauces, anyway, but stock up on any interesting lower fat sauces to mix it up for yourself -- Target's Archer Farms brand has a lot of interesting ones like peanut sauce, but there's also salsa, Frank's Red Hot (buffalo wing flavor!), asian marinades, dressings, etc. Just warm (or not) and serve spooned (measure!) over your meat (or starch). I also like Cookwell and Company's Fat Free Queso (find it at HEB), and have heard good things about Tostito's Spinach Dip, although I doubt these are dairy/gluten free.

Starchy side:
small baked potato (cook in the microwave) (use the aforementioned ranch dressing to top)
polenta (make on the weekend and serve during the week or do it in the slow cooker)
rice (I like Texmati light brown rice, cooked in the microwave for as long as white rice)
frozen hashbrowns
frozen french fries -- I like Alexa (if you are turning on the oven and have more time)

Vegetable:
Chose something that steams well in the microwave or bake if you are turning on the oven
broccoli
cauliflower
broccoli slaw (sautee with tomato sauce)
squash
sugar snap peas
etc...

Sweets:
Fruits -- fresh
Fruits -- sauteed with a bit of canola oil or spray oil, sprinkled with cinnamon.
Lighthouse makes a 1 pt caramel dip that may work, and would be great over apples or bananas
Hershey's special dark syrup -- 1 teaspoon is 15 calories, and is great drizzled over dessert
Tofu Puddings
Fruit & Tofu Smoothies
Betty Crocker Gluten Free Cake Mix made with a can of diet soda (the WW boards have these recipes)

Snacks:
raw veggies and a tofu based dip (or a greek yogurt dip if it's just you)
fresh fruit
sliced lunch meats -- turkey, roast beef
turkey pepperoni
vegetable soup
orville redenbacher 100 calorie pack popcorn
portion controlled nuts (100 calorie packs of almonds)
Popchips
Kettle Brand Baked Potato Chips
Mr. Krisper's Baked Rice Crisps
Soy milk hot choclate (for the kid... with Hershey's syrup -- Starbucks might do this for you too)

There's also some good threads on the Weight Watchers forums you should read:
Gluten Free Tips and Resources
Gluten Free Diet for Kids
(or just search the entire site for Gluten Free.)

1 comment:

  1. Sara, you are taking away my excuses! :) Seriously though, you are really amazing at all of this! I greatly appreciate you taking the time to look into all of this. I never even thought to look for gfcf recipes on WW. I just did a midnight trip to the grocery store (to avoid crowds) and stocked up on a lot of new items that I think will help. I have been slacking on going to the meetings for myself for a really long time and I am going to try my hardest this week to go back. I have a pantry stocked full of healthy food for Aidan and I... so no more excuses, right?

    Remind me again where you got the silken tofu..

    Again, Thank you so much. This helps alot.

    ReplyDelete